620 000 Swiss legal entities — and a non-EEA data regime that Apollo's compliance pages don't actually discuss
Switzerland sits outside the EEA. Its data-protection regime is the revised Federal Act on Data Protection — revFADP / nFADP, in force since 1 September 2023. It is functionally compatible with GDPR — the European Commission has confirmed Switzerland as an adequate third country — but it is not GDPR. The supervisory authority is the FDPIC, not a German Landesbehörde or the CNIL. The unsolicited-commercial-communications layer sits in Article 3 UWG, not in PECR.
For a serious B2B sender that matters. Around 620 000 legal entities sit in Zefix, the federal index across the 26 cantonal commercial registers, of which roughly 110 000 are AGs / SAs and 100 000 GmbHs / Sàrls. AtlasForgeX reads them under the revFADP regime, with the legal basis surfaced per record.
Free 1-day trialThe legal frame first — because Switzerland is not the EU
Three Swiss-specific layers govern B2B prospecting. None of them is GDPR. AtlasForgeX surfaces them per record so a Swiss sender can choose the right outreach path without re-deriving the analysis lead by lead.
// Data-protection layer · revFADP + FDPIC
The revised Federal Act on Data Protection (revFADP / nFADP) entered into force on 1 September 2023. It is functionally compatible with GDPR — same principles of lawfulness, transparency, purpose limitation, right of access and right to object — but it is its own act. The European Commission has confirmed Switzerland as an adequate third country, which keeps EU↔Switzerland transfer rules straightforward.
The supervisory authority is the FDPIC — the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner. Its published guidance accepts the equivalent of legitimate-interest processing for B2B outreach where the contact is at a business address relevant to their function and an opt-out is offered.
Function mailboxes (info@, kontakt@, contact@) are not personal data in the revFADP sense. Named business addresses are personal data but processable under the recognised business-purpose grounds.
// Communications layer · Article 3 UWG
Article 3 paragraph 1 letter o of the Federal Act against Unfair Competition (UWG / LCD) restricts unsolicited mass commercial communications without prior consent. The structure mirrors EU e-privacy rules but is set in Swiss competition law rather than data-protection law — a different enforcement path.
FDPIC and SECO guidance read Article 3 UWG as targeting bulk consumer marketing. Targeted, role-relevant B2B outreach to a business contact at a corporate domain, with a clear opt-out and identifiable sender, is treated as outside the abusive-mass-marketing scope. Existing customer relationships have an explicit statutory exception.
AtlasForgeX marks each record with its applicable basis: existing-customer · legitimate-business-purpose · soft-opt-in-recommended so the Swiss sender picks the right path per segment.
A note on cross-border data flow: any export of personal data from the EU into Switzerland triggers GDPR transfer rules. Switzerland's adequacy status keeps that path straightforward in principle — but in the AtlasForgeX architecture it is moot anyway. All processing runs locally on the Windows endpoint. Personal data does not leave the user's machine, so there is no transfer to qualify in either direction.
What AtlasForgeX reads — the Swiss source order
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Zefix · the central index
Zefix (
zefix.ch) is the federal central index across the 26 cantonal commercial registers. Returns UID/IDE/IDI number, legal form (AG/SA, GmbH/Sàrl, Einzelunternehmen, Kollektivgesellschaft), registered seat, purpose, signing officers and active status. AtlasForgeX uses Zefix as the canonical entry point and the UID as the cross-source dedupe key. -
Cantonal Handelsregister extracts
Zefix points to the underlying cantonal commercial register (KH for Kantonales Handelsregister, KR in some cantons). Cantonal extracts give the full board composition, signature rights (Einzelunterschrift, Kollektivunterschrift zu zweien), management changes and historical entries beyond Zefix's summary view.
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SHAB / FOSC / FUSC · the official gazette
The Schweizerisches Handelsamtsblatt (DE) / Feuille officielle suisse du commerce (FR) / Foglio ufficiale svizzero di commercio (IT) publishes new entries, changes, dissolutions and major corporate events. AtlasForgeX cross-references SHAB/FOSC publications for recency signals — a recent capital change or directorship update is a buying-cycle indicator.
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NOGA 2008 classification
NOGA 2008 is the Swiss national variant of NACE Rev. 2. Identical at four digits with EU NACE; Switzerland publishes five-digit national refinements. Examples:
26.60(irradiation, electromedical and electrotherapeutic equipment),72.11(biotechnology research),21.20(pharmaceutical preparations). Combinable with canton and legal form as native filters. -
Trilingual web analysis · DE · FR · IT
Live analysis of the company domain in three parallel languages. Target pages: Impressum (DE), Mentions légales (FR), Note legali (IT). Extracted: direct dial, function mailboxes, named addresses, leadership team. Romansh-region sites usually publish DE + FR in parallel and are caught by both engines.
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Swiss hiring portals
jobs.ch (the largest Swiss job board, multilingual), JobScout24, jobup.ch (French-speaking Switzerland), and jobs.ricardo.ch. Active vacancies in sales, engineering, operations or finance are the strongest single buying signal for an expanding Swiss SME.
Where the Swiss economy actually concentrates
Pharma + life sciences. Roche, Novartis, Lonza ecosystem. Dense supply chain of mid-sized pharma services, contract manufacturers and analytical-instrument suppliers. NOGA 21 / 72 / 26.6 concentrated. German-language dominant; trilingual analysis picks up French-speaking commuter-region suppliers.
Banking, insurance, asset management, fintech. Zurich runs in German with English overlay; Geneva runs in French. Highest density of AGs / SAs and foreign-owned subsidiaries. NOGA 64 / 65 / 66 / 70. Zug adds crypto and holding-company concentration.
Watchmaking. The classic Swiss watch and high-precision micro-machining belt — Le Locle, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Bienne / Biel. Family-owned ateliers and tier-2 suppliers, almost entirely French-speaking and offline from a LinkedIn perspective. NOGA 26.5 / 26.6 / 32.12.
Machinery + medtech. Federal capital but also a serious industrial canton. Ypsomed, Stadler, Bystronic and their supply tier. NOGA 28 / 26.6 / 33. German-language with a French minority in the Jura-Bernois.
Biotech and tech around EPFL. Software, ag-tech, medtech and clean-energy ventures clustered around the polytechnic. Almost entirely French-speaking with English landing pages on multinationals. NOGA 62 / 72 / 26.
Why Apollo struggles in the Swiss segment
Apollo's stack is English-language LinkedIn aggregation plus purchased contact lists. That covers the global brands with Swiss offices well — Nestlé, ABB, Roche, Credit Suisse. It does not cover the 60-person precision-machining SME in La Chaux-de-Fonds, the 80-person pharma services contractor in Allschwil, or the 50-person ag-tech spin-out near EPFL.
Those firms file at the cantonal register, sit in Zefix, classify under NOGA 2008, and publish their leadership in trilingual Impressum / Mentions légales / Note legali pages. Their decision-makers usually do not maintain English-language LinkedIn profiles. AtlasForgeX reads the Swiss primary sources natively in DE, FR and IT, surfaces the UID as the dedupe key, and applies the revFADP + Article 3 UWG legal basis per record.