In 2023, Switzerland confirmed for the 13th consecutive year its position as “the most innovative nation in the world”. However, the country often struggles to transform its inventions into successful businesses. For Sara Girardi, financial director of the Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM), the problem is above all “cultural”.
Founded in 1984 in Neuchâtel, CSEM is a technological center, but also a non-profit organization which aims “to promote competitiveness through innovation and the development of high-end technologies”. In other words, it is a sort of incubator for start-ups, for which it offers several services, ranging from part of the financing, to administrative and even technical tasks.
Guest of La Matinale on Wednesday, its financial director Sara Girardi, therefore benefits from an ideal position to know where innovation is in Switzerland.
“A lack of resources”
“Switzerland is a ‘start-up nation’. If we look at the statistics, today we have around 300 start-ups created each year, whereas there were around ten per year in 2000 ( …) there are also many organizations, not just the CSEM, which support them,” she explains.
“Overall, Switzerland invests a lot in everything related to training, which is the basis of our technologies,” she adds.
But for the one who is also in charge of the Council for aiding the creation and support of start-ups, the big problem is that of financing. “We can do better, we lack resources today. When it comes to financing, the investors are largely foreign,” she explains.
And to cite a recent example at CSEM: “A month ago, a local start-up received 27 million investment for a bracelet that allows you to measure blood pressure continuously and avoid going to the doctor They were on their second fundraising, which again came mainly from Silicon Valley.
A cultural problem
Also interviewed in La Matinale on Wednesday, Guy Parmelin, federal councilor in charge of the Economy, explains that “in view of the disastrous situation of federal finances”, the Confederation does not consider it appropriate for the moment to create a fund support for start-ups. However, he recalls that Berne will invest nearly 30 billion francs over four years for training, research and innovation.
Asked to react to these comments, Sara Girardi believes that this innovation fund, under discussion since 2021, could have been very useful.
“If we look at the example of Great Britain and France, they have made these investment funds: we are therefore behind schedule, even if we have the support of the Confederation via the aid provided by Innosuisse and the Swiss National Research Fund,” she explains.
For Sara Girardi, this is a cultural problem. “The Swiss still have a slightly greater risk aversion than in other countries,” she judges.
Risk of departures abroad
While not all situations are equal, the financial director notes that the risk is ultimately the loss of skills.
“Having foreign investors is not a problem in itself. We still create jobs in Switzerland, innovation remains in Switzerland (…) it becomes a problem when a company buys, relocates and closes everything there is in Switzerland is a technology that was created in Switzerland and which, ultimately, disappears completely,” she describes.
Sara Girardi therefore advocates the development of solid institutional funding for promising young start-ups. “It would be a real shame to have this coveted place as number one country for innovation and then do nothing with this innovation,” she concludes.
Comments collected by Pietro Bugnon
Web adaptation: Tristan Hertig
