Basel Area scores again as an attractive business location
Basel Area Business & Innovation has concluded the 2025 financial year with an outstanding result. Last year, the investment and innovation promotion agency helped 38 companies to establish themselves in the Basel Area economic region. The number of company settlements is the second-best result ever achieved – and this in a time of global uncertainty. Basel Area Business & Innovation has reached the milestone of 300 establishments just in time for its tenth anniversary.
After a slow start, the end of Basel Area Business & Innovation’s 2025 financial year was marked by an intensive final push. Although many companies initially held back from investing due to the uncertain geopolitical situation, caution gave way to confidence. By the end of the year, Basel Area Business & Innovation had supported 38 company settlements in the cantons of Basel-Landschaft, Basel-Stadt and Jura. Companies from the life sciences sector were once again the most prominent, with 27 settlements, which again demonstrates the attractiveness of the Basel Area Life Sciences Supercluster. The newly settled companies come from 13 different countries. Five each of them are from the USA and India, four each from France and China, and three each from Germany and Belgium. Seven companies from other Swiss cantons relocated to the Basel Area last year. The new companies in the Basel Area have created around 120 jobs. According to their own statements, they plan to offer around 240 new jobs in the next three to five years.
In the course of its ten-year history, the agency for investment promotion has supported the settlement of 334 companies, thus exceeding the 300 mark. This result coincides with another anniversary: for ten years now, the cantons of Basel-Landschaft, Basel-Stadt and Jura have been pooling their efforts in the field of innovation promotion as part of the Regional Innovation System Basel-Jura, which is also supported by the federal government (SECO). Basel Area Business & Innovation is responsible for the implementation of joint innovation projects, while Regio Basiliensis acts as the coordination office. Thanks to the cooperation between the cantons, the added value, competitiveness and attractiveness of the Basel Area have been strengthened, with a particular focus on peripheral areas.
The results of the agency’s own innovation promotion, the second pillar of Basel Area Business & Innovation, must be viewed in a more nuanced light. Although the number of company foundations supported by the agency has fallen from 67 to 46, this is due to a deliberate change in strategy:
“While we used to support startups from all possible sectors in setting up their companies, we are increasingly focusing on high-tech companies. We expect the focus on technology companies to generate higher added value for the Basel Area in the long term.”
About Basel Area Business & Innovation
Basel Area Business & Innovation is the strategic growth partner helping scalable ventures in science and tech to land, launch and level up in the Basel Area. The agency for economic promotion supports startups, scaleups, SMEs and global enterprises with expert insight from science and tech specialists, equity-free funding to fuel their growth, and end-to-end support tailored to their industry and stage. Serving the cantons of Basel-Landschaft, Basel-Stadt and Jura, the non-profit agency’s mission is regional growth, meaning its stake is in the future of the Basel Area. Basel Area Business & Innovation provides companies with direct access to the insights, infrastructure and collaborative networks to scale seamlessly inside Europe’s most concentrated innovation ecosystem and its transformative Life Sciences Supercluster. The agency also manages the three sites of the Switzerland Innovation Park Basel Area.