{"id":36443,"date":"2018-02-14T15:43:26","date_gmt":"2018-02-14T14:43:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/?p=36443"},"modified":"2019-04-26T14:50:35","modified_gmt":"2019-04-26T12:50:35","slug":"vc-industry-in-italy-among-the-bleak-reality-of-numbers-and-a-pinch-of-optimism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/2018\/02\/vc-industry-in-italy-among-the-bleak-reality-of-numbers-and-a-pinch-of-optimism\/","title":{"rendered":"VC industry in Italy: Among the bleak reality of numbers and a pinch of optimism"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Two<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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By Philippe de Marsac<\/a><\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The last State of European Tech Report ( by Atomico) offers an unrelenting warning on Italy. Despite its $1.85T GDP, the country has not yet been able to generate a venture ecosystem compared to its true potential<\/span>. It has invested only $3\/capita (vs. $123 in Sweden and $45\/capita in France).<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The decrease of investments in Italy<\/h3>\n
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VC investments into Italian startup are not booming. They are rather decreasing<\/strong>. In 2017, Europe has invested over 17 billion \u20ac while Italy is <\/span>barely<\/span><\/span> able to reach 130million \u20ac. This yawning gap relies on a low prevalence of VC operators and smart capital available. Also, it is due to an ecosystem in search of its own identity.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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But public initiatives are flourishing\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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This does not mean that Italy is bound to play a minor role. <\/span>The Italian Government has created a long-standing commitment<\/strong> to generate favorable conditions for the establishment and development of innovative enterprises<\/span><\/span>. <\/span> This means to contribute <\/span><\/span>significantly<\/span><\/span> to the economic growth and employment of the nation<\/span><\/span>. <\/span>This is one of the big paradoxes of the Italian ecosystem: such legislation has contributed to lay the foundations for a new ecosystem composed of +8.000 startups<\/span><\/span>. In the meantime it has not been able to fuel the system with capital towards the startup community<\/strong>. Thus, Italian startups struggle to raise funds and turn their project abroad. \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The involvement of investors\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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Thanks the fiscal leverage that is a key to support investments, new public initiatives are flourishing in Italy<\/strong><\/span><\/span>. <\/strong>At national level, Invitalia Ventures managed a \u20ac 87 million-sized<\/strong> co-investment fund dedicated to early stage companies<\/span><\/span>. <\/span>Such fund received subscriptions from a mix of smart capitals starting from the Ministry of Economic Development, the Europe Investment Bank and Cisco Group<\/span><\/span>. <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP) also plays a crucial role<\/strong> to revitalize the VC industry. <\/span>Several funds have <\/span><\/span>been implemented<\/span><\/span> alongside the financial supply chain of innovation such as ITAtech Fund, a \u20ac 200 million-sized investment platform supporting technology transfer in Italy (in cooperation with the European Investment Fund) and the Tech Growth Fund (\u20ac 150 million) that invests in late stage companies<\/span><\/span>. <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Which city will become the main Tech Hub in Italy?\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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The Regions have also taken part to the VC recovery. <\/span>A great number of initiatives are spreading across the country, including the one promoted by Latium Region<\/strong> that has recently launched FARE Venture, a \u20ac80 million-sized fund of funds dedicated to local startups<\/span><\/span>. The project is quite ambitious since Rome is aiming to compete with Milan as the main tech hub in Italy<\/strong>. <\/span>Over \u20ac 500 million have <\/span><\/span>been put<\/span><\/span> on the market to fuel the innovation ecosystem and make a decisive leverage effect on the market<\/span><\/span>. <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The need for ecosystems<\/h3>\n
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Although the financial part is one of the most important pillars of growth for promising startups, the development of a structured and connected ecosystem<\/strong> is <\/span><\/span>equally<\/span><\/span> important<\/span><\/span>. Italy has undertaken great efforts even though some corrections are still needed. <\/span>The emergence of high-level incubators and accelerators is a key element for a healthy and stimulating contamination within the innovation ecosystem<\/span><\/span>. How can we not mention Luiss Enlabs<\/strong>, one of the biggest European accelerators? Its 5.000 sq.m accelerator <\/span>is located<\/span><\/span> in the hearth of Rome. <\/span>Other VC accelerators like PI Campus, H-Farm (the Tuscany based startup studio Nana Bianca) and <\/span><\/span>lastly<\/span><\/span> Cariplo Factory aim to become the Hub of open innovation connecting startups with corporates<\/span><\/span>. <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Italy would gain more visibility if its ecosystem were more structured<\/strong>.\u00a0 It would be useful to refer to foreign models, such as the French one<\/strong>. <\/span>There, many regional public incubators and accelerators offer state-of the-art services to the startup community<\/span><\/span>. <\/span>They also have a wide range of private initiatives coming from banking operators such as Credit Agricole (+25 interconnected Village by CA across the country) or vertical incubators linked to Business Schools and Large Corporates<\/span><\/span>.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The French Tech label is an exemple to follow<\/h3>\n
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Moreover, France has recently developed the French Tech<\/strong>, a label that provides a single, unified voice to promote the tech industry worldwide<\/span><\/span>. Let us mention that Milan has already <\/span>been recognized<\/span><\/span> as the local tech hub since November 2016. This initiative means to strengthen the cooperation between the French and Italian ecosystem<\/strong>. <\/span>But it can also <\/span><\/span>be seen<\/span><\/span> as a stimulus to turn the current local ecosystem into a pool of talents and innovative projects ready to shine in Italy and abroad<\/span><\/span>.\u00a0The year 2018 <\/span>shall<\/span><\/span> therefore<\/span><\/span> become a turning point<\/strong> for the Italian VC industry.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Philippe de Marsac<\/a> is a\u00a0business development manager at Invitalia Ventures, mentor French Tech and member of the Steering Committee of the French Tech Milan Hub<\/em><\/div>\n
LinkedIn<\/a><\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Philippe de Marsac \u00a0 The last State of European Tech Report ( by Atomico) offers an unrelenting warning on Italy. Despite its $1.85T GDP, the country has not yet been able to generate a venture ecosystem compared to its true potential. It has invested only $3\/capita (vs. $123 in Sweden and $45\/capita in France).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":36446,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10564],"tags":[7649],"class_list":["post-36443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tech-2","tag-startups-en-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}