Why Switzerland's next robotics giant will probably be built at an address near Zurich Airport

Since 2020, Switzerland has generated roughly 3.5 times more venture-funded robotics startups per capita than the United States, and five times more than the United Kingdom. That's not a marketing claim — it's a data point showing up in every serious deep tech report published this year. What's missing is physical infrastructure that matches that ambition. Most robotics founders still work out of generic office space never designed for what they actually do: build, test, and rebuild machines that move, sense, and act in the physical world. The Gallery, a next-generation Robotics Hub at Thurgauerstrasse 119 — between Zurich Airport and Oerlikon — was built to close that gap.

An Ecosystem Outgrowing Its Real Estate Switzerland channels 63% of all venture capital into deep tech, the highest share of any country. The country hosts more than 230 VC-backed robotics startups, anchored by the ETH Zurich–EPFL corridor, Europe's leading robotics cluster. Founders coming out of these labs need workspace that reflects a technically serious ecosystem — not a generic office built for laptops, not hardware. What Robotics Companies Actually Need Ask any hardware founder about their lease, and the same complaints surface: no space to run a robot without knocking into desks, landlords uneasy about noise or dust, zero infrastructure for prototyping, no peer group solving adjacent problems. The Gallery addresses this directly: Flexible, scalable floor plans — start small, expand without renegotiating every funding round Real-world testing space, built for robotics testing, not a sealed-off open-plan office A working robotics community of founders, engineers, researchers, and investors under one roof Architecture built for focus — daylight-filled, efficient floor plans Located inside the Greater Zurich Area — often called the Silicon Valley of robotics, home to ABB Robotics, ANYbotics, and NVIDIA's robotics teams — The Gallery puts founders minutes from Zurich Airport and the ETH/EPFL talent pipeline. Why Location Still Matters You cannot remote-work a torque test. Hardware needs a room, a bench, a loading dock. Proximity to talent, investors, and peer companies remains a genuine competitive advantage in a hardware-driven field. Key Takeaways Switzerland produces robotics startups at several times the per-capita rate of the US and UK. Robotics companies need testing space and peer proximity that conventional offices weren't built for. The Gallery is purpose-built around exactly those needs. Book a tour of The Gallery at Thurgauerstrasse 119 and see what a workspace built specifically for robotics looks like.