Business Creation Regulations

Criteria

Founders can apply for the ETH Spin-off label when the requirements are met.
Criteria include:

• is based on, will exploit, or otherwise uses, even partially, ETH Research Results¹; and 

• is directly or indirectly incorporated by an ETH Member (or a person who has been an ETH Member within the 2 years prior to incorporation), either alone or together with others

¹ definition of ETH Research Results is described in the Business Creation Guideline,
Art. 3

Benefits

An officially recognized ETH spin-off has access to the ETH Entrepreneurship Ecosystem (E³), including all support and services offered to ETH Spin-offs by all Units of ETH.

This includes: 

• the option to rent office- and lab space at ETH and to use ICT infrastructure at favorable conditions
• the option to use ETH infrastructure and services
• access to Investor Connect
• access to exclusive activities and events for (future) founders and their companies, which are by invitation only. 

Application process for Spin-off Recognition 

The application process is detailed in the Business Creation Regulations (RS ETHZ 440.5) Annex 1

Licensing

If a spin-off would like to commercialize a technology from ETH Zurich, depending on the case, a licensing agreement is required.

• Patented inventions from ETH Zurich require a license. 
• Software: If the software was developed at ETH Zurich, the spin-off needs to conclude an assignment/sales agreement or a licensing contract ETH transfer or 
• Knowhow, data and prototype: This is case dependent. Consulting with Technology Managers at ETH Transfer will clarify the situation.

Founders can choose between 2 licensing procedures for patented inventions:

• Standard licensing procedure 
  • Negotiable terms and conditions 
  • Process is managed by ETH Transfer
• Express licensing procedure  
  • Non-negotiable fixed terms and conditions - as defined in the Equity and Licensing policy (RS ETHZ 440.51) 
  • Timeline: 1 month (if ETH SHA template is used)
  • Process managed by Business Creation Manager

Criteria

Founders can apply for the ETH Spin-off label when the requirements are met. Criteria are among others:

• is not (not even partially) based on or using ETH Research Findings; and
• has a scalable business model; and 
• is directly or indirectly incorporated by an ETH Member (or a person who has been an ETH Member within the 2 years prior to incorporation), either alone or together with others

Application process for Start-up Recognition 

Becoming an ETH Start-up is a voluntary (opt-in) process with 2 different paths, providing different entitlements to the ETH Start-up: 

Path 1: Post-incorporation recognition of an eligible Company as an ETH Start-up.
Please apply external page here

Path 2: Recognition as an ETH Start-up via an Entrepreneurship Promotion Program
(pre- or post-incorporation)

• 2a: Pre-incorporation. Please apply external page here 
  This pathway is only applicable in case ETH is entitled to participation in the company as regulated in the Entrepreneurship Support Program Guideline.
• 2b: Post-incorporation. Please apply external page here

The application processes are detailed in the Business Creation Regulations (RS ETHZ 440.5) Annex 2.