Switzerland has strongest focus on deep tech in Europe

Zurich/Berlin/Amsterdam - Switzerland had a higher proportion of venture capital investments in deep tech companies than any other European country in 2022. Additionally, in a Europe-wide comparison, deep tech spin-offs from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich created the most value.

The?European Deep Tech Report 2023?shows that the European deep tech market saw strong growth in terms of invested venture capital in 2022: it was the second-largest segment after energy in the third and fourth quarter. According to the report, European deep tech companies raised a total of 17.7 billion US dollars last year. While this is 22 percent lower than the previous year, it is still 60 percent higher than 2020. Most investments went to four emerging deep tech sub-sectors: novel AI, the future of computing, novel energy, and space tech.

The United Kingdom remains Europe’s deep tech leader between 2016 and 2022, followed by France, Germany, and Sweden. These countries received between 28.78 and 8.5 billion US dollars of investments in deep tech. Switzerland came in fifth place with 6.7 billion US dollars, “punching above its weight” according to the report. However, deep tech accounts for 35 percent of all Switzerland’s venture capital investments, followed by Finland with 32 percent and Norway with 27 percent.

In 2022, 1.5 billion us dollars were invested in deep tech companies in Switzerland, 85 percent more than in the previous year. Here, too, Switzerland ranks 5th.

The number of active deep tech patents held by universities is highest in the UK, followed by Germany and France. Switzerland comes in fourth place. When it comes to individual universities with the most deep tech patents, the?Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne?comes in second place, with 7 percent, behind the Catholic University Leuven (8 percent) and in front of the?Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich?in third place. They are followed by the University of Oxford, TU Dresden, and the University of Cambridge, each with 5 percent.

Out of the countries with the most value of university spin-offs, Switzerland comes in second place, behind the UK and in front of Germany. When universities are considered individually, ETH takes first place.