The support of Basel Area Business & Innovation helped 39 new companies establish themselves in the Basel Area. This exceeds the previous year’s figure of 27 company settlements. As the investment and innovation promotion agency for the cantons of Basel-Landschaft, Basel-Stadt and Jura reported, by far the largest share was attributable to the life sciences sector, with 28 new companies. Seven of them operate in the field of digital health. Five new companies in the region work in production and process technology.

The 39 new companies come from 15 countries. Five are from France and five from the USA, three from the United Kingdom and nine from Swiss cantons outside the Basel Area.

Foundation of 76 startups supported

The agency also supported the foundation of 76 startups in the Basel Area in 2021. While this is six fewer than in the previous year, it is the second highest figure ever achieved. The appeal of the Basel Area for new company settlements was enhanced through venture accelerators and incubators launched by the location promotion such as BaseLaunch (biotech), DayOne (digital health), i4Challenge (industrial transformation) and Venture Monitoring, a mentoring for startups service.

The Switzerland Innovation Park Basel Area also saw “pleasing” growth. There are now 68 companies and 14 research groups at its sites in Allschwil in the canton of Basel-Landschaft, Basel, Jura and the Novartis Campus. To make space for the growth of the Innovation Park at the Novartis Campus, this will move to a much bigger neighboring building on 1 April.