ETH Zurich is regularly cited internationally as a founder-friendly benchmark for university technology transfer, largely because of a specific, published structure: a low, fixed baseline equity stake and an “Express” licensing track that lets founders sign standard-terms agreements in under a month instead of negotiating a bespoke license from scratch. This guide covers how that structure actually works, what ETH’s own 2025 venture statistics show, and how the underlying model differs — structurally, not just numerically — from Germany’s institute-based approach and France’s centralized SATT network.
This is part of CASRAI’s series on international technology-transfer models. See the companion guides on Germany’s Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft model and France’s SATT network for the full detail on those two systems. Note: this guide is about Switzerland’s technology-transfer model specifically — for Switzerland’s research-integrity framework (a distinct topic), see CASRAI’s guide on Switzerland’s Code of Conduct for Scientific Integrity and the new Competence Centre.
ETH transfer and the 2025 Equity and Licensing Policy
ETH transfer is ETH Zurich’s technology-transfer office, operating within the broader ETH Entrepreneurship (E3) ecosystem (entrepreneurship.ethz.ch). Its role covers invention disclosure intake, patenting decisions, and licensing — including the licenses that underpin most ETH-originated spin-off companies.
On 10 July 2025, ETH Zurich brought a revised Business Creation Regulations (RSETHZ 440.5) and, for the first time, a dedicated standalone Equity and Licensing Policy (RSETHZ 440.51) into force, replacing the prior 2019 spin-off guidelines. ETH developed the revision with external legal counsel (Bär & Karrer). The stated goal was to make the terms ETH offers founders transparent and predictable rather than individually negotiated case by case — the policy itself, not just informal TTO practice, now fixes the baseline terms.
The same 2025 revision also introduced a second venture category alongside the long-standing ETH Spin-off label: the new ETH Start-up label, for ventures founded by ETH members using knowledge or experience gained at ETH, but not built on a licensed ETH invention or research finding. Because an ETH Start-up isn’t commercializing ETH-owned IP, it doesn’t go through the equity/licensing structure described below in the same way an ETH Spin-off does.
How ETH’s “Express” licensing track works
For ETH Spin-offs founded after 10 July 2025, ETH takes a flat 2% equity stake at incorporation, uniformly, in recognition of the know-how, research infrastructure, and ETH Entrepreneurship Ecosystem support the founders drew on. This baseline is fixed by policy, not negotiated per deal.
Separately, for patents that ETH owns outright (sole ownership, not co-owned with an industry partner or another institution), founders can use the Express licensing path: a standard-terms license that can be drafted, agreed, and signed in under a month, rather than going through open-ended bilateral negotiation. Instead of negotiating royalty and equity terms individually, founders choose from a small published menu of options that trade off:
- Equity (E) — additional ETH equity on top of the fixed 2% baseline;
- Royalties (R) — running royalty rates on product/service revenue; and
- Sublicense fees (S) — fees if the spin-off sublicenses the technology onward.
Founders who prefer to keep additional equity dilution to zero can select a higher-royalty option; founders who prefer to preserve cash flow can trade some additional equity for a lower royalty rate. Either way, the terms are published in advance, so a founding team knows the real cost of the license before starting formal negotiations — the negotiation itself, where it happens, is scoped narrowly rather than open-ended. As a backstop, if royalty payments don’t reach a set threshold within five years, a minimum annual payment of CHF 5,000 applies, and the spin-off must reimburse ETH’s patenting costs.
Express licensing is the fast track, not the only track: inventions with co-owned IP, non-patent IP (software, data, know-how), or deal structures that don’t fit the standard menu still go through ETH’s standard negotiated licensing process, which takes longer. For a spin-off that does qualify for Express terms and has its documentation ready, ETH cites a six-to-eight-week timeline from application to a founded company.
ETH’s 2025 spin-off and start-up numbers
ETH publishes annual venture statistics (ETH News, “More companies founded, new regulations, new accelerator,” February 2026, and the accompanying ETH Ventures 2025 report). Verified figures for 2025:
- 46 new ETH Ventures recognized in 2025 (24 carrying the ETH Spin-off label, 22 the new ETH Start-up label) — up from 37 ETH Spin-offs in 2024, under the prior single-label system.
- 661 ETH Ventures cumulatively have received the ETH Spin-off or ETH Start-up label between 1973 and 2025.
- CHF 540 million raised across 41 financing rounds by ETH-originated companies in 2025 — up 27% year-on-year — including 12 rounds above CHF 10 million. Reported top raises included Auterion AG (CHF 103 million), Beekeeper AG (CHF 34 million), and DeepJudge AG (CHF 33 million).
- Technology & Software (including AI/ML) was the largest sector at 26% of new ventures, followed by Biotech & Pharmaceuticals at 15%.
- Female founders represented 17% of all founders in 2025, with mixed-gender and all-female teams together accounting for roughly a third of new ventures.
Because 2025 is the first year under the new two-label system, the 46-venture figure isn’t directly comparable to pre-2025 “spin-off only” counts on a like-for-like basis — a meaningful share of that growth (22 of 46) reflects the newly created ETH Start-up category rather than a jump in IP-based spin-offs specifically.
Comparing IP retention: Switzerland vs Germany vs France
“Founder-friendly” in ETH’s case is less about a single headline number and more about structure: a published, fixed baseline (2% equity) plus a narrow menu of pre-agreed licensing options, applied uniformly, with a fast (sub-one-month) path to signature for the common case. That combination of transparency and speed is what founders and investors can plan around before a term sheet is ever discussed.
Germany and France organize technology transfer differently, which makes a direct equity-percentage comparison less meaningful than it first appears:
- Germany has no single national university spin-off policy. IP and equity terms are typically set institution by institution, negotiated per case, and not published as a standard schedule the way ETH’s now is. A large share of Germany’s applied-research IP also originates outside the classic university-TTO channel entirely — through the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft’s own network of applied-research institutes, which operates its own commercialization and licensing structure rather than a university spin-off model per se (see CASRAI’s Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft guide for that structure in full).
- France centralizes much university-originated IP through the SATT (Sociétés d’Accélération du Transfert de Technologies) network — regional companies, jointly owned by public research institutions and the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, that act as an intermediary licensing and maturation layer between a researcher’s home institution and a prospective spin-off founder. Because a SATT sits between the institution and the founder, and terms are negotiated per project within that structure, founder-facing equity and royalty terms are not published as a single standard schedule either (see CASRAI’s SATT network guide).
Industry benchmarking of university equity stakes (aggregated across US/UK/EU spin-outs, reported by sources including spinout-focused advisory groups) has put average EU university equity take rates in the low-to-mid single digits — one widely cited figure is roughly 5% in 2021 — with UK take rates typically running considerably higher. ETH’s fixed 2% baseline sits below that reported EU-wide average, though this is an aggregate cross-country benchmark, not an audited Germany- or France-specific figure, and individual German or French deals can and do vary. The more verifiable, structural difference is that ETH now publishes its baseline and its Express menu as policy, while neither the standard German institution-by-institution model nor the French SATT-intermediated model publishes an equivalent fixed schedule for founders to plan against in advance.
What this means for research administrators
For a TTO or research-administration office evaluating its own spin-off licensing process, ETH’s model illustrates a few transferable design choices independent of the exact percentages involved:
- Separate the “everyone pays this” baseline from the negotiable part. A small, fixed, non-negotiable equity stake plus a narrow published menu of royalty/sublicense trade-offs removes the largest source of early-stage negotiation delay — open-ended equity discussions — without eliminating founder choice entirely.
- Publish the terms before the negotiation starts. Whether or not an institution adopts ETH’s exact numbers, publishing a standard-terms option (even as one track among several) lets founders and early investors model dilution before signing a term sheet, which shortens due diligence.
- A fast track doesn’t have to be the only track. ETH still runs full bilateral negotiation for non-standard cases (co-owned IP, non-patent IP, unusual deal structures) — the Express path exists specifically to remove friction from the common case, not to replace case-by-case handling entirely.
- Distinguish “built on our IP” from “built on our training.” ETH’s new Spin-off/Start-up split is a useful conceptual model for any TTO deciding which ventures actually need a formal IP license at all, versus which merely originated with someone the institution trained.
For the broader context this model sits inside — invention disclosure, licensing structures, and commercialization pathways generally — see CASRAI’s Technology Transfer & Innovation hub.
Frequently asked questions
How much equity does ETH Zurich take in a spin-off?
A flat 2% at incorporation for every ETH Spin-off founded after 10 July 2025, under ETH’s Equity and Licensing Policy. Founders who use the Express licensing path for an ETH-owned patent can choose options that add further equity in exchange for lower royalty rates, or keep dilution at the 2% baseline in exchange for higher royalties — the choice is the founders’, from a published menu.
What is ETH’s “Express licensing” process?
A fast-track licensing option, available for patents ETH owns outright, that uses standard pre-agreed terms instead of open-ended negotiation. Agreements can be finalized and signed in under a month, and founders select from a small published set of equity/royalty/sublicense-fee combinations rather than negotiating each term from scratch.
How does ETH Zurich’s model compare to Germany’s Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft?
They’re not directly equivalent structures. ETH’s Express model is a university TTO’s licensing policy for spin-outs of ETH-owned IP. Fraunhofer is a network of applied-research institutes with its own commercialization structure, largely separate from the classic university spin-off pathway; German university spin-off terms generally, where they exist, tend to be negotiated institution by institution rather than published as a fixed schedule. See CASRAI’s Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft guide.
How does it compare to France’s SATT network?
France centralizes much university IP transfer through regional SATT companies, which sit between a founder and their home institution and negotiate licensing terms per project rather than off a published standard schedule. See CASRAI’s SATT network guide for the full structure.
How many spin-offs does ETH Zurich produce each year?
In 2025, ETH recognized 46 new ETH Ventures (24 ETH Spin-offs and 22 ETH Start-ups, under the label system introduced that year), up from 37 spin-offs in 2024. Cumulatively, 661 ETH Ventures have carried an ETH Spin-off or ETH Start-up label since 1973.
