The Swiss Crypto Valley continues to flourish

Despite the current crisis and travel restrictions, the number of active crypto companies in Switzerland and Liechtenstein has increased from 842 (in 2019) to 919. In the first half of 2020, 31 companies disappeared or moved, whereas 51 new companies joined the sector. As more established firms consider blockchain technology, digital assets, and cryptocurrencies as essential to their activities, the list of companies in this sector continues to grow at a healthy pace.

The current CV VC Report H1/2020 also presents the list of Top 50 companies in Switzerland and Lichtenstein that were selected based on the criteria: funding, valuation, and employees in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Accordingly, the top 50 companies are valued at $37.5 billion in total, and they have raised US$ 3.7 billion in funding. Furthermore, blockchain companies in Crypto Valley have created 4784 jobs, of which the Top 50 companies created 776 jobs.

Startups with over 20 employees in Switzerland include Bitcoin Suisse (114), SEBA (76), Sygnum (60), Crypto Finance (37), Cryptix (34), Dfinity (32), Lykke (30), Taurus (25), Modum (25), 4ARTechnologies, (22), Deon Digital (21), Coreledger (20), Nexo (20) and Securosys (20). Compared to H2 / 2019, one additional company crossed the threshold of 20 employees.

Three newcomers in the Top 50
Near Protocol, Velas Network and Aave have been added to the list of Crypto Valley Top 50 companies.

VELAS AG is headquartered in Crypto Valley Zug and has two team members in Switzerland. Velas multi-currency wallet allows users to store, stake and transfer their digital assets with the highest security available today.

Aave is an open-source and non-custodial money market protocol to earn interest on deposits and borrow assets with a variable or stable interest rate. The company is headquartered in London and has three team members in Switzerland.

NEAR is a decentralized storage and compute platform that is secure enough to manage high-value assets like money or identity and performant enough to make them useful for everyday people, putting the power of the Open Web in their hands. The company is headquartered in San Francisco and has one employee in Switzerland.

Three drop-outs
Several companies have been removed from the Top 100. TokenSuisse ceased operations and is now operating under Tallyon, which aims to obtain a banking license. Xapo has reduced its operational footprint in Crypto Valley, while it can still be assumed that it is using storage facilities in Switzerland to safeguard its holdings. Bitmain was removed from the Top 50 Report, as it no longer has any significant presence in Crypto Valley. The startup was also delisted from the list of Unicorn companies in Crypto Valley.