Incorporating a company in Switzerland feels outdated, slow, and costly. Why we should be inspired by progressive countries such as Estonia

Founding and growing a company is hard. Finding investment for your startup is even harder. But once you’re there, another administrative challenge awaits: You will need to get the funding registered and your company incorporated.

Sounds easy? At least in Switzerland, my home country, it is not so. It is a costly, time-consuming, and paper-based process.

I know from first-hand experience as the Founder & CEO of Yonder, a B2B SaaS company. Let’s dive into the details.

The Agony, In 4 Acts

Capital Deposit Accounts

You finally received all the commitments from your investors, and now you can proceed with the closing of your financing round.

It starts with the investors wiring their pledged amounts. It doesn’t work by them just sending the money to your company account. It needs to go through a capital deposit account—a special type of account designed to prevent the investment money from being spent before the round is closed.

Not a bad thing, but do we really need setup and balancing costs of hundreds of dollars for such an account? Is it really not possible to show the balance of the capital deposit account in your eBanking app? In our last financing round, I had to call my bank every day to check which investors had sent their money and which ones I needed to follow up with.

Public Deed

Once the capital is neatly deposited in your capital deposit account, you’re ready for the next step.

If you think the next step is to work out an investment agreement and a shareholder’s agreement, you’re wrong. That’s a precondition for the administrative agony to start at all.

Now you need to prepare a public deed to let the world know you closed your financing round. That’s another piece of paper that you need a registered notary to prepare. And yes, you will have to sign it with a pen. Under the watching eyes of the registered notary. In return, you’ll get a fat invoice and a sealed and laced-up version of the document.

Registration with the Commercial Register

On to the next hurdle. With the copy of the public deed, you can register your capital increase with the commercial register. It’s a formality, but an important one: Before your capital increase is registered with the commercial register, you cannot release the raised money from the capital deposit account to your company account.

And because the commercial register authority doesn’t have the same sense of urgency as a startup in the funding phase, it can very well take a couple of weeks before you receive your certified excerpt of the commercial register. On paper, that is.

Issue Levy Tax

Do you think you’re done now? Not quite. There is a last step to take. Your government expects you to send 1% of the raised money to them, in the form of an issue levy tax. Within 30 days from registration with the commercial register.

That’s your homeland’s way of saying thanks for all your hard work and for creating jobs.

A Blueprint for A Modern Solution

What I described above is the reality in a developed, prosperous European country in 2025. It reads more like colonial red tape from the 1960s, doesn’t it?

I can buy a car, pay by credit card, and walk up to my new car that already sports the new license plates. The purchase is a fully digital process, including proof of insurance and proof of identity. Why does this not work with a capital increase?

I can buy a holiday home at the other end of the country without seeing a notary. Sending an apostille, the mortgage confirmation from my bank, and wiring the money is enough. The next step is to get the key from the real estate agent. Why does this not work with a capital increase?

In Switzerland, we tend to explain to the world why our processes make sense and why they must stay the way they are. Hey, we’re a successful country, so why change?

That’s dangerous. Other countries move much faster with process digitization. Think of Estonia, the digital frontrunner among European countries.

Maybe we should just copy-paste their digital incorporation processes.