Boston | July 15, 2026

For Swiss startups, the United States often has an outsized reputation. “Everybody talks about the US like ‘Yeah, crazy valuations, shoot for the moon,” says Ahmed Ben Falah, CEO and co-founder of Isospec Analytics — but the reality is more complex. “People are bold, but also very realistic,” he said. “It’s not the image that we have in Europe that people here are throwing money at stuff.  That’s not true, especially in Boston […], here people are much more grounded.”

To make it in America, Swiss founders need a clear understanding of these differences, both between Switzerland and the US, but also between regions and ecosystems. The American market isn’t monolithic — different regions have different strengths, cultures, and offerings. Last month, several Swiss biotech startups got to experience some of these nuances during the Biotech Startup Camp, powered by Innosuisse and managed by Swissnex.

The program kicked off with a week-long immersion into Boston’s leading life-sciences ecosystem, before the startups travelled to San Diego, California, for the BIO International Conference. For Tareck Raafat and Nada Chelbli, co-founders of Apxora, the opportunity to explore different ecosystems was a key reason to join the camp. Before arriving in Boston, they started the month at the NY Tech Week Startup Camp. “We’re in the healthcare space, but we’re also deep tech,” said Rafaat. “So New York provides the horizontal picture on the deep tech side and Boston is the vertical — going deep into the life sciences.”

Beyond these regional variations, Julia Wagner, co-founder of UNOMR, who also joined the NY Tech Week camp, noticed several larger transatlantic differences. Some were practical insights about American business culture — “Being annoying is not a bad thing in the US. You can write follow-up emails up to ten times. In Europe, I would stop after two” — but others had to do more with the scope, scale, and atmosphere of the startup scene:

For Wagner, some of the greatest insights didn’t come from networking with local partners, but “connecting to other peers planning a similar strategy [and] with founders here that have already made the transition to the US.” 

Overall, the camp offered the participants something more valuable than any advice — the opportunity to to test their preconceptions against the reality on the ground. “You will hear a lot of different signals from people who have gone to the US, but as long as you haven’t done it yourself, you’ll not be able to trust any of those,” said Kamil Seghrouchni, co-founder of Isospec. “If you don’t come here and don’t stress it here, you’ll never know whether you’re right or wrong.”