Good news – More VC money for Swiss #startups in 2014

The latest report on venture capital money invested in Switzerland has just been published and compiled by Startupticker.

It highlights a few interesting facts denoting the continued interest from venture investors in Swiss high-tech startups (quoted from the report):

In 2014, Swiss start-ups collected more than CHF 450 million in 92 financing rounds.
This represents an increase of about 10 % on the previous year, with the number of funding rounds remaining practically the same.
More than three quarters of the invested money went to companies in the life sciences sectors, with medtech in particular increasing significantly (with CHF 150M). Investment in ICT companies actually declined (CHF 86M but across a larger number of deals).
About CHF 200 million was invested in young firms in Vaud in 2014, putting the canton in first place. But Zurich is clearly in the lead with 43 rounds (47 %), followed by Vaud with 21 (23 %).
Traditionally, in Switzerland, it is difficult to complete financing rounds of between CHF 2 million and CHF 10 million. The number of financing rounds in this area fell again in 2014.

So overall positive and encouraging, but still a lot of of work ahead to support early stage funding.

Unfortunately very little information is available on true IRR rate of returns for investors in this asset class in Switzerland. Pages 16 and 17 of the report interestingly compile 2014 exits, trade sales to US companies in majority (Bitspin to Google, Kooaba to Qualcomm) plus the remarkable IPO of Molecular Partners on SIX in Zürich. A few startups have assuredly delivered positive returns and multiples to their founders and investors (think about Composyt, Sensima, Endosense or Mesa) but overall it seems that we are still missing out on unicorn-like significant exits. Let’s keep pushing and working on it!

Interesting read and more details can be found in the full report

Swiss VC Report_2014

Source with press release in French : http://startupticker.ch/en/news/january-2015/450-millions-pour-les-start-ups-suisses#.VMkTWEtgCX8