Dübendorfer: The Swiss stock exchange is poorly suited for tech startups
Thomas Dübendorfer · With a Swiss Founder-Investor Who Built 9 Startups and Funded 40 | Thomas Dübendorfer · Oct 14, 2025 · at 19:59
Thomas Dübendorfer discusses why Swiss startups like On Running choose foreign exchanges or M&A over listing domestically.
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“Switzerland has a stock exchange, but it's not really well suited for startups, right? And if you don't have enough revenues, don't have enough valuation, then no way to even have a chance.”
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More from Thomas Dübendorfer
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“Unicorns, the companies that had a billion dollar valuation or more in the last 12 years, we found 58 of them, where we have a public proof that they reached a one billion valuation.”
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“So if you go for the most diverse ecosystem it's definitely Switzerland.”
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“What you're really bad at, I would say it's doing things at scale at the masses, B to C, just cheap. And go big. Don't have the right cost structure here.”
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“There are almost no growth stage funds here. So most of the gross money the Swiss types need to get from abroad.”
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“We as an angel club for the verticals of FinTech and IST, we contribute a very large number of rounds in some years, 70% of all deals in tech startups was from us.”
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“If you are very opportunistic here, you're going to fail very badly because society doesn't accept it. If you start to do things which is against people in society, they will not trust you anymore, and if nobody trusts you, you're going to be dropping out of s…”