Current startup market study Switzerland

Tue, 31.05.2022, 14:00

As a key partner for company founders and startups, PostFinance promotes the interests of founders. For this reason, PostFinance joined forces with the IFJ and the LINK Institute to launch the study “The startup market in Switzerland”.

In 2021, the global economic situation was not easy. The unthinkable came face to face with the inevitable. Right in the middle of a world market that was only slowly recovering. And yet, in these turbulent times, more people than ever decided to strike out on their own: projections suggest that more than 33,000 new startups were founded in Switzerland in 2021. That equates to around 67 percent of all new entries in the Swiss commercial register.
 
In response to the question of “why establish a company in the first place?”, Swiss company founders gave a clear answer: by establishing their own company, they saw an opportunity to gain more freedom. An almost poetic answer, followed by economic reasons – though a few percentage points behind, it should be noted – such as unfulfilled target group needs, tax advantages or, very pragmatically, a higher income.
 
However, the company founders’ view of their future was about more than just their dreams: almost a third worried during the startup phase about whether they would receive enough orders and generate enough turnover in future. 25 percent of respondents also said that administrative costs, legal provisions and compliance with government requirements were a cause for concern.
 
The founders also felt that choosing the right insurance provider and drawing up their business plan were particularly challenging. And yet many of their concerns appear to have vanished into thin air shortly after starting their company, when far fewer respondents said that order quantities and administrative work still made them nervous. And the share of the newly carefree increased by a hopeful 16 percent to 34 percent.
 
However, it is fascinating that the issues of “startup costs” and “procuring capital” were a cause for concern for only four percent of those surveyed. Why is that? The startup costs are manageable: around a third of those surveyed indicated that they spent less than 500 francs on setting up their company. 20 percent of survey participants invested 2,000 francs or more.
 
You can read these fascinating facts and much more in our summary of the 2021 study on “The startup market in Switzerland”.

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