Switzerland has strongest focus on deep tech in Europe

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 is Europe’s deep tech leader in 2022, followed by France, Germany, and Sweden. Switzerland came in fifth place with 1.5 billion US dollars of investments in deep tech, “punching above its weight” according to the report. Furthermore, deep tech accounts for 35 percent of all Switzerland’s venture capital investments from 2016 to 2022 (total investment amount of 6.7B), followed by Finland with 32 percent and Norway with 27 percent. This makes Switzerland the country with the highest deep tech focus in Europe in recent years in terms of venture capital investments. 

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 however, 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 (ETH) 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 Zurich takes first place with a big lead. 

The European Deep Tech Report 2023 is the latest version of an annual report created by three partners: dealroom.co, an Amsterdam-based supplier of data on startup ecosystems in Europe and across the world, and two venture capital companies, Walden Catalyst Ventures with headquarters in San Francisco and Berlin, and Lakestar from Zurich. mm