The Swiss fintech sector continues to enjoy very good conditions, write Prof. Dr. med. Thomas Ankenbrand, Prof. dr. Andreas Dietrich and Denis Bieri from the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences. “In the global fintech hub ranking, the cities of Zurich and Geneva continue to be ranked 2 and 3 respectively,” the scientists report. They express the hope that “Swiss fintech companies could counteract the decline of traditional financial institutions”.
According to the fintech annual study of the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences, which has already been carried out for the fourth time, the Swiss fintech sector has once again grown strongly in 2018, according to the University in a summary of the results published on 27th February.
At the end of 2018, there were a total of 356 Swiss fintech companies, which represents an increase of 62 percent compared with 220 companies in the previous year. This was mainly due to strong growth in Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), whose number has more than tripled.
There was also significant growth in the other product areas. However, with values ranging from 17 percent for Banking Infrastructure to 38 percent for Payment, they are much less dynamic than the booming Blockchain segment. Of the total of 356 companies, according to the study, 122 work in the field of DLT.
Striking in 2018 was the strong increase in venture capital investments, even though the number of financing rounds itself had hardly changed in comparison to the previous year. The university writes about the participating crypto startups:
“SEBA Crypto AG, which announced a total of CHF 100 million as announced on September 27, 2018, has the largest share of seed capital.”
However, in terms of initial coin offerings (ICOs) of fintech startups, there has been a decline both in number and volume in 2018. The study determines:
“The largest ICO in 2018 was Envion, which raised approximately $ 100 million, followed by Nexo and SwissBorg with $ 52.5 and $ 50 million, respectively.”
The results of the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts are in line with the Swiss Venture Capital Report 2019, which was published in January and which also saw strong growth in the Swiss fintech sector in 2018.