UBS has joined forces with telecommunications company Swisscom to set up the Deep Tech Nation Switzerland Foundation, aiming to channel up to CHF50bn (€51.5bn) in the next 10 years in deep-tech start-ups, it announced today.
The main aim of the foundation is to boost venture capital investments over the next decade in start-ups and to scale-up businesses in the deep-tech sector, indirectly creating up to 100,000 jobs in Switzerland, it added.
UBS will work through the foundation to improve the framework conditions to increase the amount of growth financing capital for young companies in Switzerland, attracting both Swiss and international investors.
The foundation plans to create Venture HubSwiss, with a funding and a legal structure that stands out compared with other international hubs, providing “attractive framework conditions for institutional and strategic investors”, the bank added.
A so-called Unicorn Factory will support young companies in the start-up and and scale-up phases to position themselves as an investment target for investors, it added.
With these measures, the Deep Tech Nation Switzerland foundation is setting up two platforms to bring together players “for an even more effective innovation ecosystem and to promote existing activities”, UBS added.
The foundation will establish a communication channel to inform investors on the Swiss ecosystem for tech innovations.
Switzerland has one of the finest education system worldwide, and research facilities to develop tech solutions, but lacks the volume of venture capital investments necessary in the research-intensive deep-tech sector to market innovations, according to UBS.
Just under CHF3bn per year flow in Switzerland to finance early stages of start-ups and their growth phase, compared with Sweden where investments amount to at least CHF5bn, and Israel to more than CHF10bn per year, it added.
Swisscom called on institutional investors, including pension funds and asset managers, to fund the country’s start-up ecosystem, with the company’s chief executive officer, Christoph Aeschlimann, warning that Swiss start-ups need capital to compete internationally.
“The Deep Tech Nation Switzerland Foundation is necessary so that ideas can be turned into successful solutions with more venture capital. We address global challenges by building a dynamic ecosystem for start-ups and scale-ups that focus on social issues,” the CEO said today.
Sabine Keller-Busse, president of UBS Switzerland, added: “It is very important to us to work with the Deep Tech Nation Switzerland Foundation to create better framework conditions in order to better support the market launch of future-oriented technologies to address social challenges.”
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