The pandemic was a key trigger for digital transformation and, in turn, crypto markets. In Switzerland, this led to an increase in the number of companies in the Crypto Valley as well as in the number of employees. New start-ups were founded, established companies grew and new international projects moved their headquarter to Switzerland.
This week the latest CV VC Top 50 report was published. The report created by CV VC AG in collaboration with its technology partners inacta and PwC Switzerland shows a clear upward trend in the last eight months between July 2020 and End of February 2021. The total number of companies with some kind of presence in the Crypto Valley plus companies active in the crypto field increased to 960 (previously 919). Growth accelerated significantly in the second half of 2020, with over 110 new companies either being founded or joining the blockchain and crypto currency space (69 companies moved or became defunct).
The heart of the Crypto Valley are the Top 50 companies described in the report. In total these companies have 819 employees in Switzerland – up from 776 in June 2020. Four companies have mor than 50 employees in Switzerland: Bitcoin Suisse (145), Sygnum (90), Seba Bank (93) and Dfinity (52). According to the report Bitcoin Suisse is valuated at USD300 million, Sygnum at USD500 million and Seba Bank at USD350 million. Eleven companies have between 20 and 50 employees: Crypto Finance AG, Custodigit, Modum, Swissborg, 4Art Technologies, Taurus, Metaco, Utopia, Deon Digital, nexo and Cysec.
In addition to the Swiss companies the Crypto Valley was able to attract international projects that registered their companies in Switzerland. A good example is Oxygen.org with a focused team of financial and software engineers in London, New York and Israel. The company aims to bring prime brokerage services facilitating leveraged trading and asset lending not only to banks, wealth management firms, and hedge funds but also to individual users. The company was incorporated in Zug in October 2020 and closed a financing round of USD40 million in February 2021.
These trends confirm the attractiveness of Switzerland and Liechtenstein for blockchain and cryptocurrency-based projects and companies. The further development of the regulatory framework will continue to drive growth in financial services as well as bring even more decentralized projects and technology firms to Crypto Valley.
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