First Swiss Scale-Up Report maps 265 growth companies, with Western Switzerland among the leading hubs

The Swiss Scale-Up Report 2026, the first benchmark of Switzerland’s growth-stage companies, identifies 265 scale-ups with a combined estimated valuation of CHF 26.6 billion. Vaud ranks second among cantons, and EPFL stands alongside ETH Zurich as a leading source of spin-offs.

The Swiss Scale-Up Report 2026, published by Deep Tech Nation Switzerland, Swisscom Ventures, SIX Swiss Exchange and startupticker.ch, with contributions from Swisspreneur and the Swiss Startup Association, counts Switzerland’s scale-ups company by company for the first time. It identifies 265 scale-ups with a combined estimated valuation of CHF 26.6 billion, within a national population estimated at 400 to 500, and draws on an in-depth survey of 75 of them. The report defines a scale-up as a Swiss-headquartered company that has raised at least CHF 20 million over ten years, employs 30 or more people, or generates CHF 5 million in annual revenue growing by at least 20% a year.

Most of these companies were founded in the past decade: 64% are deep tech and 43% are spin-offs of Swiss universities or research institutions. Among surveyed companies, 71% keep most of their workforce in Switzerland, half grow faster than 50% a year, and 76% earn most of their revenue abroad. Scale-ups account for an estimated 14,000 to 18,000 R&D positions, between a quarter and a third of all private-sector R&D personnel in Switzerland.

Western Switzerland in the scale-up landscape

Zurich is home to 89 of the identified scale-ups, followed by Vaud (57), Zug (34), Basel-Stadt (26) and Geneva (18), with the report describing a density concentrated along the Zurich–Lake Geneva axis. Of the 125 institutional links recorded for spin-offs, EPFL accounts for 41, almost level with ETH Zurich’s 42. The report also cites the European Spinout Report 2025, which ranks EPFL fourth among European universities for spinout value creation.

Several companies from the region feature in the report’s case studies and interviews. Nexthink, founded in Lausanne in 2004 from work originating at EPFL, kept its technology and product core in Lausanne throughout its growth. EPFL spin-off Flyability illustrates the international expansion of Swiss scale-ups, while Renens-based SWISSto12, which builds satellite payloads and small geostationary satellites, reported USD 140 million in revenue for 2025. Ecorobotix develops its precision spraying machines near its headquarters in Yverdon-les-Bains, and Geneva-based Sonar and Proton contribute through their founders, Olivier Gaudin and Andy Yen. Among support programs, the report lists Innovaud’s Scale-up Vaud label, which counts 44 companies in its tenth year, and the 2026 cohort of Project Switzerland includes Vaud-based Corintis and Insolight.

Financing and policy priorities

Since 2012, the identified scale-ups have raised more than CHF 13 billion across 348 later-stage rounds, with foreign investors financing most of that growth: the Swiss share of attributed later-stage capital fell from 27% in 2019–2022 to 13% in 2025. Seven in ten surveyed companies plan a financing round within the next two years. Asked which reforms would help them most, founders cite easier pension-fund investment in venture capital (73%), standardized employee equity (61%), faster work permits for non-EU talent (48%) and the abolition of the stamp duty on capital (44%), all included in the Startup-Agenda Switzerland adopted in February 2026.