October 2024 Foundations Report: A Strong Autumn for Start-ups

The year 2024 continues to position itself as a strong year for start-ups compared to the previous year. Between January and October 2024, 43'610 start-ups were registered, compared to 42'549 in the previous year. This represents an increase of 2.49 percentage points.

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October 2024 Foundations Report: A Strong Autumn for Start-ups
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Strong Central Switzerland

The growth of start-ups was particularly strong in Central Switzerland. A total of 648 new companies were founded, 20.45% more than in September. In October, the region registered 557 entries in the commercial register, 16.34% fewer than this month.

The trend was similar in Eastern Switzerland, where a total of 569 new companies were registered. The difference compared to the previous month is +14.72 percentage points and the year-on-year increase is 10.27%. In St. Gallen, the canton with the highest number of start-ups, 277 new companies were founded, which corresponds to an increase of 24.22% compared to the previous month.

French-speaking Switzerland continues to grow

In the region with the largest number of start-ups, French-speaking Switzerland, 1309 registrations in the commercial register were counted. This corresponds to a growth of 4.05% year-on-year and 10.37% month-on-month. With 436 new start-ups in October, the canton of Vaud remains the canton with the highest number of start-ups in the region.

Zurich also excelled in October with 814 entries in the commercial register. This corresponds to an increase of 15.63% compared to September and a positive change of 2.13% year-on-year.

The increase was particularly strong in Ticino with 226 new registrations, which corresponds to an increase of 42.14 percentage points compared to the previous month.

Northwestern Switzerland lags behind

The only region that did not follow this trend was Northwestern Switzerland. In October, 878 start-ups were registered, which corresponds to a slight change of +1.15% compared to September. In a year-on-year comparison, October 2024 lost 3.30 percentage points compared to October of the previous year.

Outlook

As expected, there was an increase in start-up activity in October. The increase of 12.48% was particularly significant compared to the previous month. Since in previous years a further increase was recorded in November, it is expected that this will also be the case in the coming month.

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