Innosuisse
Swiss Innovation Agency

Support for start-ups

Start-up Coaching

The amount in millions of francs and the total number of coaching sessions relate to Start-up Coaching as a whole (Initial, Core and Scale-up Coaching). The last figure shows only the number of Core Coachings.

Innosuisse's coaching is aimed at science-based start-ups with a high potential for innovation and growth and offers individually and thematically tailored support services that are customised to the respective start-up phases and specific needs.

Innosuisse's coaching services strengthen the agility and skills of the founding team – from consolidating the business idea and business models to financing and developing growth strategies in international markets. Start-ups benefit from a broad network of coaches (200+), who contribute both general start-up expertise and, in some cases, very specialised knowledge in areas such as financing, marketing, technologies or intellectual property rights. The three phases also ensure that each start-up receives targeted and comprehensive support at the same time.

This breadth, the modular structure and the flexibility of the coaching distinguish it from the multitude of other offers in national and international comparison.

A high proportion of the start-ups coached are spin-offs from research, which strengthen the interface between the latest scientific results and the transfer of knowledge and technology to the market. Many of the start-ups in coaching thus pursue groundbreaking business ideas, technologies or business models.

Over the last ten years, start-ups have become increasingly important. The dynamic start-up ecosystem is a key strength of the Swiss innovation system. Through tailored and broad coaching services, this potential for implementation and scaling in the markets is being realised to create highly skilled jobs and new value creation potential in Switzerland.

Core Coaching at Innosuisse is the central phase in Start-up Coaching, in which a start-up builds its fundamental capabilities and structures for lasting success, expansion and growth. The following results relate to Core Coaching.

Start-ups rate Core Coaching as helpful for their further development

Core Coaching covers a wide range of topics that are specifically tailored to the concerns of start-ups. The topics are ranked in descending order of their relevance to start-ups (see percentages in light grey). The chart shows the percentage of supported start-ups that rate Core Coaching as helpful or very helpful in the relevant topic areas.

The topic area of greatest importance for coaching, ‘development of the business model’ (91%), also shows the highest proportion of start-ups that rate the support as helpful (81%). Support in acquiring capital, which is also highly relevant (85%), was perceived as helpful by two-thirds of start-ups (66%). Help with market entry was rated similarly (65%). The rating for support in scaling the business model was somewhat lower (55%), which probably indicates that many start-ups are not yet in the actual scaling phase when the coaching is completed.

Start-ups' coaching expectations are being met

Around four out of five start-ups that received coaching confirmed that Core Coaching had made an important contribution in at least one relevant area (78 %), with this being rated as ‘supportive’ or ‘very supportive’. The proportion of start-ups whose expectations were largely met was similarly high at 84 %.

For around half of the start-ups, the coaching made a significant contribution in at least three important start-up topics (54%). Almost as high is the proportion of start-ups for which expectations were fully met or even exceeded (48%).

Start-ups pursue radical and disruptive business ideas with an impact on international markets

Compared to innovation projects, start-ups generally pursue more radical innovations and business models. Only a few implement clearly incremental innovations and business models. The majority also aim to realise disruptive innovations and significantly change the market or even create new markets with their innovations. The proportion of start-ups that develop a world market first or a first for international markets is correspondingly high (77%).

Start-ups succeed in entering the market – profitability takes more time

A decisive factor for the survival and growth of start-ups is to actually enter the market in order to scale the business model later. By the time the coaching was completed, around 80% of the young companies had launched their innovation on the market. The next milestone is profitability, when the start-up begins to make a profit. This is already the case for about one in ten start-ups by the time the coaching programme is completed. Three years later, this applies to almost one in three start-ups.

Start-ups in the coaching programme successfully raise capital

For start-ups, fundraising is crucial to continuing their business idea and scaling it in the markets. Research and development and the market launch of an innovation require a high level of investment, which is why fundraising is a central topic in Innosuisse's coaching programme. By the end of the programme, 22% of the start-ups coached had each acquired more than CHF 5 million in new capital. For two-thirds of the start-ups, coaching directly supported fundraising.

Three years after the coaching, start-ups have created over eleven full-time positions.

For start-ups, growth is a key indicator of success. Three years after completing the coaching programme, the start-ups have created an average of over eleven additional full-time positions. Around half of these are in Switzerland. It is particularly evident in start-ups in the ‘Life Sciences’ sector and those with high-risk innovations that market entry and sustainable growth often only occur later.

Coaching reflects and strengthens the diversity of the ecosystem

The share of female founders among start-ups that complete the coaching programme is 17%. Female members are represented in 35% of the start-up teams, and the trend is increasing. In addition, the start-up teams are highly international: 67% of start-ups have at least one founding member with foreign citizenship, and an average of 43% of the start-up teams are foreign members. This underlines the international character of the Swiss start-up scene.

In terms of topics, there is a strong focus in the start-up sector on the thematic area of Life Sciences, including Medtech and Healthcare (38%) and ICT (30%), see support offers and content. At the same time, the other technology and innovation areas are also widely and diversely represented. The following remarks also show that spin-offs from the research landscape and universities are of great importance. Internationality plays an important role in this.

The diversity of the start-ups funded makes a significant contribution to the economic and technological dynamics of the start-up ecosystem and to strengthening the Swiss economy as a whole.

Many start-ups have their origins in research

Half of the start-ups that take advantage of Innosuisse's Core Coaching originate from a university or research institute. Around one in three start-ups is a spin-off that wants to exploit intellectual property from research work commercially and has contractually regulated this. Two out of three start-ups state that they have already protected their intellectual property with a patent or plan to do so in the near future.