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COVER STORIES 85 <strong>Startup</strong>ticker.ch Switzerland in the global spotlight The Swiss start-up scene has already been through numerous trends. While the last few years have been dominated by the increasing interest of large companies in start-up companies, a trend towards internationalisation is now apparent. Behind this is an economic imperative. <strong>Startup</strong> DAYs is a good indicator of the development of the Swiss start-up scene. At the event in recent years, one could feel the rising quantity just as much as the increasing quality and professionalisation, and the emergence of serial entrepreneurs. This year, there was a move towards greater internationalisation, and once again the event was at the forefront of developments. The increasing internationalisation of the Swiss start-up scene has been noticed by startupticker. First, it makes itself felt in the number of visitors: the proportion of our foreign readers had long been about a third, but that has increased significantly over the past two years. In summer <strong>2018</strong>, we recorded foreign traffic of 45%. Interest from the US has increased significantly and now more than 10% of total traffic comes from there; in second place is Germany with a good 7%. We are currently working to increase these numbers. Interest in Switzerland also manifests itself in reporting; for example, we have published several articles about the activities of Euronext in Switzerland – the European stock exchange supports <strong>Startup</strong> INVEST’s IPO Day as a partner. We have already reported on the interest from Israel, and the Start JLM competition looks specifically for Swiss start-ups that want to network with the ecosystem in Israel. An innovation collaboration planned by Innosuisse with its Israeli counterpart, the Israel Innovation Authority, also illustrates the great interest. At the same time, Swiss support organisations that target startups with foreign expansion plans have also increased their offers. For example, venture leaders is constantly adding a programme for a new country, and in <strong>2018</strong> Swiss start-up representatives travelled to South Africa for the first time. Other traditionally strong players are expanding their services: Switzerland Global Enterprise will organise a Swiss Pavilion for the first time in 2019 at the Consumer Technology Show CES in Las Vegas. Much more is going on with initiatives that want to connect foreign start-ups with the Swiss ecosystem. These include Kickstart Accelerator and MassChallenge Switzerland, industry-specific accelerator programmes, such as F10, and digitalswitzerland’s bootcamps. Switzerland benefits from these programmes in several ways: first, start-ups with foreign roots often decide to relocate to Switzerland, such as fintech start-up Enterprise Bot or industry 4.0 company MachIQ. Second, they give Swiss programme participants the opportunity to network internationally, and, third, such initiatives put Switzerland on the map worldwide as a start-up location. STEFAN KYORA These initiatives make sense and lead to success, since today start-ups must look for human resources, clients and investors around the world right from the start if they want to succeed in global competition and grow fast. Modern collaboration tools enable start-ups to work across multiple locations. And in addition to Silicon Valley, start-up ecosystems are emerging with specific strengths that can be used by a start-up with distributed locations. The trend towards internationalisation will thus continue. Switzerland will see the emergence of more companies such as Beekeeper, where the head office is in Zurich but the marketing manager is based in San Francisco, or ScanTrust, which has offices in Lausanne, Shanghai, Singapore and Amsterdam, and more startups from abroad will consider Switzerland as a location. For Switzerland, which has historically benefited from bouts of globalisation, this is good news. Stefan Kyora is Editor in Chief of <strong>Startup</strong>ticker.ch and Managing Partner of JNB Journalistenbüro, Luzern. SWISS STARTUP <strong>GUIDE</strong> <strong>2018</strong>
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