The data updated at the beginning of April and relating to the demographic trends and economic performance of innovative startups basically say three things: that the innovation ecosystem in Italy (with all the weaknesses we know of) continues to be populated by new players and new partners ; that the projects and startuppers are concentrated above all in Lombardy and arise only in part from under 35 and female initiatives; that the turnover produced by the new enterprises is still at low levels even though the profitability values of the companies in profit (half of them) are particularly positive.
Few companies in pink and mostly foreign
Let’s start with the Italian startup population. The usual quarterly report prepared by the Mise in collaboration with InfoCamere and the Chamber of Commerce system has updated the number of companies registered in the specific register to 12,561, 3.4% of all 373,000 newly established joint stock companies and the 5.6% more than in the previous quarter.
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Three out of four startups provide services to businesses and in particular the production of software and IT consultancy (specialization that affects 36.9% of the total), and research and development activities (14.2%), while 17% operates in the manufacturing sector and only 3% in commerce. The critical data remains that of the female presence: only 13% of companies see the majority of company shares and administrative positions in the hands of women; it is better for innovative startups with a prevalence of young people (under 35), which are 17.4% of the total, while those with a predominantly foreign shareholder structure are only 3.7%.
Milan is the most virtuous province, Asti is behind
Looking at the territorial distribution, Lombardy is once again confirmed as the main cradle of Italian startups, hosting over a quarter of the total. The province of Milan alone, with 2,363 innovative companies, represents 18.8% of the population, surpassing all other regions in absolute values (Lazio has 1,443, mostly located in Rome, Valle D’Aosta, leading up to national tail, only 19). The palm of the basin with the highest density of innovative companies, on the other hand, always belongs to Trentino-Alto Adige, where approximately 5.7% of all companies established in the last five years are startups. Friuli-Venezia Giulia (5.4%) and Lombardy (4.7%) follow. A note at a territorial level: in each of the first 17 provinces in the ranking there are more than 160 startups but the last 12 in the ranking have less than 15 (the negative record belongs to Asti, where only five innovative companies are located).
One out of two companies at a loss
Having said that the capital shareholders of the companies registered in the register have reached more than 60 thousand units (an increase of 6.9% compared to the previous quarter), the items that photograph the financial state of the startups remain the most critical. The average value of production is in fact just over 182.6 thousand euros (the balance sheet data refer to the 2019 financial year) while the total turnover, slightly down compared to the final balance at the end of December, touches 1.4 billion euros. EUR. In 2019, and this is also a recurring figure, the majority of the companies turned out to be at a loss, we are more than 52%, against 31.7% of the total universe of recently established Italian joint-stock companies. On the other hand, there is an indicator that bodes well: the profitability (Roi and Roe) of companies in profit is significantly better than that reported by other joint-stock companies, with an average of 35 cents of added value for each euro of production.