USI Startup Centre publishes Annual Report 2025

The latest USI Startup Centre Annual Report provides an overview of activities, milestones and developments that shaped 2025, from expanding the outreach and building new connections to strengthening entrepreneurial pathways for researchers and students and supporting science-driven startups on their journey from research to market.

Startups emerge where talent, knowledge, opportunities and support come together and the 2025 report reflects the USI Startup Centre’s ongoing efforts to make entrepreneurship a more visible and accessible pathway for researchers and students. This edition adopts a more concise and visual approach to highlight key results and developments across three activity pillars: community, education and incubation. 
 
Entrepreneurship training activities expanded significantly, from the number of courses, workshops and events offered through the Innosuisse Entrepreneurship Training programme to new thematic workshops aimed to help founders strengthen their knowledge in areas such as sales, intellectual property protection, governance, product development and leadership.

The USI Startup Centre also continued investing in development of Lab-to-Market programmes, initiatives designed specifically to bridge the gap between research and entrepreneurship, supporting researchers in exploring the commercial potential of their scientific results.

Strengthening connections with investors, industry professionals and partner organisations remained another important focus area. New strategic collaborations and dedicated investor engagement initiatives contributed to expanding opportunities available to founders participating in the incubation programme.

Alongside these developments, portfolio companies achieved important milestones, collectively raising CHF 13.5 million in dilutive and non-dilutive funding. The year also marked the sixth exit within the startup portfolio with the acquisition of Elysium Lab by Blockstream.

The report further highlights the contribution of the Centre's community, education and incubation activities in supporting the development of science-driven startups, from the earliest stages of idea validation to investment readiness and market entry.

The full Annual Report 2025 is available for download below.

Download the report