ETH transfer — Technology Transfer Office of ETH Zurich

ETH transfer is the intellectual-property and licensing office of ETH Zurich, reporting to the university's Vice President for Knowledge Transfer and Corporate Relations. It manages the pipeline from invention disclosure through patent filing to industry licensing, splitting net licensing revenue roughly equally between inventors, their originating professorship, and the university. In 2025 alone it processed 124 invention disclosures, 98 patent filings and 37 signed licences.
The economic footprint is independently documented: ETH Zurich counts 530 active spin-offs founded since 1973, of which 519 remain headquartered in Switzerland, with a 93% five-year survival rate. In 2024, 37 new spin-offs were founded and CHF 425 million was invested across 42 rounds; 2025 set a record with 46 new ventures and CHF 540 million raised across 41 rounds — though ETH Zurich and the independent outlet Startupticker.ch both caution that the 2025 figure is not directly comparable to prior years because of a new spin-off/start-up classification introduced that year.
An independent University of St. Gallen study of 145 spin-offs found they generated roughly 4,500 full-time-equivalent jobs and CHF 900 million in 2017 revenue, at an average 3.6x return multiple. The same study flagged a persistent seed-stage funding gap as an area where ETH could still do more — a caveat worth weighing against the otherwise strong headline figures. Female founders remain a minority (17% in 2025), though the share has grown from roughly 8% in the mid-2000s.

Read the full analysis: https://sciencebusiness.net/news/70142/ETH-Zurich-spin-offs