What Switzerland can learn from Silicon Valley

Switzerland and Silicon Valley have a lot in common: cutting-edge research, some of the best universities in the world, innovation concentrated in a small area. But the Alpine country still lacks the entrepreneurial culture and investment to compete with the Californian ecosystem. Cristian Grossmann knew that sooner or later his company would have to land in the United States to make the big leap from small Swiss start-up to international enterprise. “You cannot be a global company if you are not in the US,” he says. It was a chance meeting with a Silicon Valley investor that allowed Grossmann to secure the multi-million-dollar funding he needed to expand his business – a mobile communications platform for staff in hotels, hospitals and other public facilities – and set sail overseas. The entrepreneur recalls that despite a good support network in Zurich, including the presence of the federal technology institute ETH Zurich, his company’s beginnings in Switzerland were not easy. On ...