Switzerland with the highest Venture Capital spending per capita

Switzerland ($69) and the Netherlands ($62) had the highest VC spent per capita in Europe. That is the result of a report by Verve Capital Partners. As a benchmark, the U.S was calculated at $67. Switzerland's leadership regarding actual VC invested is clearly reflected in its high attractiveness rank (#6) according to the Global IESE Venture Capital Attractiveness index. According to IESE, Switzerland scores well across all "VC attractiveness" dimensions analyzed - among those the quality of deal opportunities (i.e. a flow of technology spin-offs from its world-leading research universities) as well as its attractive taxation. But Switzerland's top position is also made possible due to the help of foreign investors (Switzerland is a net importer of VC) and the expansive wealth of Swiss citizens. The Netherlands' top position has to do with a similarly high VC attractiveness index (#9) and - very much like Switzerland - with a high GDP per capita.

For start-ups the figures are surprising. But it must be remembered that the figures are averages. In certain industries and in certain stages of development it can be hard to find investors even if the average number is high. One reason for the high figure is presumably the strength of the Swiss life sciences industry. Huge investments in companies like Biocartis increase the average. On the other hand it is still hard for companies from the ICT industry to find venture capital as the failure of Axsionics illustrates.

Method
Venture capital (VC) spent per capita was calculated in the following manner: research from each country’s individual venture capital association was evaluated to understand the total venture capital spent. For the purpose of this analysis, venture capital is defined as the sum of seed/start-up stages and early development and expansion stages. The country’s venture capital spent was then divided by the population to get a per capita estimate.