It has always been one of the biggest problems for those who have a startup that wants to transform into a business: being in the right place at the right moment, having the opportunity to meet as soon as possible an interlocutor, a manager, a company that knows how to recognize its potential. It doesn’t always happen, it doesn’t always happen in good time, in a structured way.
However, there is a tool that can help solve this problem and it is online. CDP Venture Capital Sgr created it and it is called Digital Xcelerator: it is a free entrepreneurial training course, delivered on 120 modules that can be used online, which covers all the phases of the life cycle of a startup, i.e. conception, consolidation and growth. It is a path for those who already have a startup, but also for those who intend to approach the world of entrepreneurship.
We talked about it with Enrico Filì, head of the XLab Unit: “From our analyzes, it is clear the need for corporates, startups, more structured companies and young entrepreneurs to work more together, not only with a view to open innovation, but also with commercial or even investment agreements. We thought about the intersection, hence the idea of the X of our platforms: we create opportunities for meetings between startups and corporates, between investors and startups, between startups and companies that provide services to which they maybe they don’t have access, between talents and startups, between university researchers and entrepreneurs who can help them get off the ground. All this requires the presence of a community made up of entrepreneurs, large companies and managers who collaborate with small companies. happening in other countries that it is precisely the small innovative companies that are driving the growth of both jobs and GDP “.
How do you do this? By focusing on the creation of value, as is already the case in the United States and Israel: by creating activities that aim to make young companies grow and increase their value, generating business and contact opportunities or bringing talents into companies.
“XLab does it with a dedicated team – explains Filì -, with free digital platforms that allow various players to collaborate, and with events that encourage startups to meet with the rest of the ecosystem. Digital Xcelerator is a portal that allows young students, recent graduates, young entrepreneurs to get to know the world of venture capital. It is a training course that has the double advantage: growing a company also means making the best use of the financial resources that are made available by investors who are aware both risks and opportunities. Those who complete all the steps can also pitch their pitch with our investment managers “.
The platform, one year after its online publication, has already recorded excellent numbers. “We have almost 1500 participants and about seventy students have graduated. They manage to have immediate feedback on their ideas and their business plans, as well as immediate indications on how to carry out their project”.
Among the participants, even those who had already started a startup, but had not yet managed to take the plunge.
As in the case of the Eye-Tech Biz startup deep tech. Monica Vatteroni, CEO and founder of the company, talks about her experience.
“At the end of 2019 we realized we had something interesting to offer to the market: that is, vision sensors that find their place in artificial intelligence applications. Unfortunately, we started the process by putting ourselves in the hands of the wrong person and we lost about a year. In September 2020 I decided to take matters into my own hands. As a technician I had many things to learn: I discovered the existence of Digital Xclerator and I signed up. I did the path, the three modules, and I started to implement that that taught me: starting from the importance of the minimum viable product (minimum working product or MVP), that is the fact of creating a prototype that allows you to test the market. In the courses there were many examples that immediately dropped you in size of things. For me it was a great starting point. The fact that it is free makes it accessible to everyone. my tool “.
Monica Vatteroni insists on one point in particular. “The presentation of our project to the tutor is very important: it helps you to understand what it is useful to say and how to say it. It helps us to present our pitches, to experts, as in a dress rehearsal. Outside this precious channel, no investor will tell you never where you did well or where you failed. Now, for example, I know that to explain my company I have to say that I make a sensor that has characteristics that are close to the human eye and that can be useful in many areas, in the automotive sector or in the medical one “.
Together with Monica Vatteroni, many graduates or undergraduates have signed up to Digital Xcelerator: those who only had an idea, those who already had a startup, or those who had a dream in the drawer even if while growing it they had found a job another company.
With the aim of being an enabler of the community around the world of startups, CDP Venture Capital Sgr has put on line a second tool called XJobs and groups all the job offers proposed by startups. It is a job board that connects talents with companies. “We give visibility to these positions – adds Filì – we communicate them so that it is easier for startups to receive applications. In a few months we have reached 850 open positions, we add dozens of them every day. It is interesting because we have a glimpse of the jobs of the future. : data scientists, experts in digital marketing or software development. But there is also the reinterpretation of existing works from a startup perspective “.
Again the numbers are exciting. “Every month, in total, we shoot about 1200 applications on the platform: there are essentially 1200 young people who present their curriculum to companies, perhaps small companies, still unknown, but in great growth”.
And that’s not all for CDP Venture Capital Sgr: “In anticipation – concludes the Head of XLab – there are other tools, such as a portal through which the startups in our portfolio will be able to access services and consultancy from a network of selected and tracked companies record in the innovation sector, we are working on it and it will be available in the coming months. “
To access the CDP Venture Capital Sg platforms: https://digitalxcelerator.cdpventurecapital.it/ and https://xjobs.cdpventurecapital.it/
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