Switzerland is home to world-leading life sciences, medtech and deep-tech innovation, but for many Swiss start-ups, the domestic market is only one part of the story. From the earliest stages, companies think beyond national borders: where to find talent, how to reach customers, which regulatory environments to anticipate and how to build trust in international hubs. For companies operating in AI and related R&D especially, rapid internationalisation can be part of the company’s structure from the very beginning, which, in other words, makes them ‘born global’.

We spoke to Martina Löfqvist, Head of Alliances and Strategic Growth at Atinary, about these patterns. Based in Lausanne and Silicon Valley, with Self-Driving Labs® in Boston, Atinary developed a code-free agentic AI platform that accelerates R&D and discovery across life sciences, food sciences and material sciences. Martina shared her perspective on why internationalisation matters, how global companies hold their culture together and what Swiss start-ups can gain by building across international ecosystems.

What it means to be ‘born global’

Bypassing traditional multi-stage internationalisation models, ‘born global’ businesses are defined as companies that seek out international markets within the first two to three years of founding, or even from inception. ‘We were definitely born global,’ said Martina. ‘From day one, Atinary was set up as a global start-up company with garages in Menlo Park, California and Lausanne, Switzerland, and signed the first clients in Japan and Canada in the first six months.’ Indeed, for Atinary, internationalisation was never an afterthought. The company’s footprint reflects both its founder story and its market reality. ‘Our market is spread out globally,’ Martina explained. ‘And it’s an especially big market in both the US and Europe.’

Each of Atinary’s locations plays a specific role. ‘Silicon Valley is valuable for its proximity to the venture capital ecosystem, and Boston is a fantastic hub for science R&D, especially for pharma and life sciences,’ Martina said. ‘Switzerland gives us access to a very strong scientific and engineering environment filled with world-class talent, and it is home to leading robotics companies and leading companies in key industries for us such as pharma and chemicals.’ By combining the benefits of these hubs, Atinary is able to access the talent and resources it needs.

But Martina stresses the importance of partnership for born global ventures. ‘No start-up can enter every market, understand every customer and build every capability alone, so strategic alliances help bridge the gap between early-stage innovation and global adoption.’ For Atinary, partnerships with global companies – including ABB Robotics, AWS, Bruker, Chemspeed, Mettler Toledoand close collaborations with leading universities such as ETH Zurich, EPFL and MIT – have played an important role in establishing credibility internationally and developing cutting-edge technology. ‘Working closely with these organisations has helped a lot with our reputation,’ Martina said. ‘It gives us credibility and shows that we can work with world-class enterprises on complexprocesses, and in turn it helps these organisations push technology and science forward.’

Such collaborations also create opportunities for knowledge-sharing: a win-win situation, critical for success. Start-ups learn from large organisations about market needs, operational constraints and emerging opportunities. Large companies, in turn, gain access to technology innovation and technical insight. ‘I’m big on partnerships,’ Martina said. ‘It’s valuable to build ecosystems and connections where you can share know-how back and forth and benefit from each other’s expertise.’

Staying grounded

Born global companies often emerge in high-tech and deep-tech markets where developed tools can cross borders more easily than physical products. ‘Whenever there’s a physical product, you have to consider supply chains and export regulations, which all come with significant costs,’ Martina explained     , adding that, ‘     going into different markets is much easier for digital platforms based on cloud infrastructure like ours.’

However, while digital start-ups can aim for a global reach at a faster pace, physical infrastructure and offices may still be part of building market trust, customer engagement and technical delivery. That became a reality for Atinary when their Self-Driving Lab was opened in Boston. More than 200 people attended the lab’s opening, and the company has since hosted regular lab tours with visitors travelling from across the US and Europe. For Martina, this confirms something important about a global start-up: even for a digital or AI-enabled company, physical presence still matters. Team members, customers, partners and investors often need to experience a company’s work in a tangible, real-world environment.

Balancing the US and Europe with Switzerland’s advantage

Beyond its market size and R&D hubs, the US remains a crucial reference point also because of capital availability and risk appetite. Martina has worked with both US and European companies, including on business development and fundraising, and has seen the differences first-hand. ‘In the US, there’s a real concentration of capital,’ she said. ‘In my experience, fundraising there has often been faster, with more capital available, than in Europe.’

European investors, she noted, tend to be more risk averse. In Europe, there is less availability of risk capital and much slower fundraising rounds. US investors, by contrast, have a higher risk appetite. ‘In the US, investors are more comfortable backing a portfolio of companies knowing that most may not succeed, as long as one becomes very big,’ Martina explained. ‘In Europe, they tend to be more cautious around where capital is placed.’

This is not necessarily a weakness. Martina sees strengths in the European model, including lean spending, long-term commitment and the use of grants alongside investor funding. European companies may scale more slowly, but that discipline can create resilience. The trade-off is speed. With larger funding rounds and greater pressure to deploy capital quickly, US start-ups may reach certain growth stages faster. European start-ups may take longer, but often with a more careful approach to resources and company building.

The Swiss label also brings credibility to deep-tech and life sciences companies because, as Martina notes, it is associated with quality, trust, scientific excellence and precision engineering. For a global start-up such as Atinary, these associations are valuable. However, Martina also sees a communication challenge: Switzerland has a strong innovation ecosystem, but it does not always promote that strength internationally. ‘Switzerland is good at not showing off too much,’ she said. ‘But on a global scale, I think it would be valuable for Switzerland to show itself more.’ International audiences may still associate Switzerland primarily with mountains, finance, cleanliness and high prices rather than with engineering and deep-tech innovation. For Swiss start-ups seeking to scale globally, this creates both an advantage and a task: the Swiss label can help build trust, but companies may need to explain more actively what stands behind it.

The challenges of international start-ups

Being born global does not simply mean having operations in several countries. As Martina pointed out, ‘While we combine the rigor of Europe with the ‘hustle’ of America, the time zones, the mindset and the culture are quite different, and this can sometimes lead to communication and collaboration friction. We have a very diverse team, with English as a second language for most people. That adds complexity in terms of understanding each other and working together.’ For Swiss and US teams, there are only a few hours in the European afternoon when meetings can easily take place.

That complexity can create friction, but it can also prepare a company for scale. ‘While it can be more challenging from a cultural perspective to span the US and Europe,’ Martina acknowledged, ‘even within Europe, there are many different ways of approaching work and communication in different countries. Tackling them from the start can actually make it a smoother transition in terms of scaling up.’ Cultural and operational challenges naturally emerge as a result of growth, but born global start-ups must address these concerns earlier by establishing systems and norms to accommodate their international presence that can make the transition smoother as companies grow.

Knowing when global makes sense

Despite her enthusiasm for internationalisation, Martina does not believe that every Swiss start-up needs to be born global. The right strategy depends on the product, customer base and market. ‘Like everything, the choice really depends on what you’re building and who your customers are,’ she said. Consumer companies, for example, may benefit from first establishing a strong position in one market, while B2B companies operating in specialised industries may need a different approach, especially when there are only a limited number of relevant customers in any one country.

As Martina put it, ‘being global is part of our DNA’, and, for many Swiss deep-tech start-ups, that mindset may increasingly become not the exception, but the starting point.