A group of over 50 startups wrote a public letter to the Italian government asking to review the reform of the Enea Tech foundation, born on the initiative of the Conte 2 government and transformed by Article 31.6 of the Sostegni Bis Decree into Enea Biomedical Tech. The foundation had received a dowry of 500 million euros to invest in research and development projects, technology transfer, university spin-offs, startups and innovative SMEs, within four verticals (Deep Tech, IT, Energy & Green, Healthcare) and ” with particular attention to startups “. The decree changed these last words to “also with reference to startups” and established that of the 500 million “at least 200 million” are destined for applied research, “including the strengthening of research, development and industrial reconversion of the sector biomedical towards the production of new drugs and vaccines “. The startups signing the proposal are alarmed by the lack of clarity about the other 300 million and ask that they be allocated to projects already selected by Enea Tech for an investment. They also hope that the 200 million allocated for the biomedical sector will be covered by budget items other than the initial ones, indicating the Ministry of Health as a possible solution.
“It is a question of the country’s strategic direction, this cannot be reduced to a political battle,” he says Alessandro Cillario, founder of Cubbit, one of the startups driving the government call for attention. The political aspect of the story is known: Enea Tech was strongly desired by the 5 Stars and in particular by the then Minister for Economic Development Stefano Patuanelli, who had also defended it from the accusation of going overlapping with Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, while now the Northern League is in the ministry Giancarlo Giorgetti, which has chosen to focus on the development of Italian vaccines. The project was long-term: 1.4 billion euros between now and 2034, of which 500 have already been funded.
Immediately after the news, the discussion on social networks had become animated, and from there it rebounded in the groups and chats of the startup founders. After a comparison, the site 500milionidifuturo.it was put online, on which the letter to the government was published. The concern is that the investments agreed with Enea Tech are now dissolving. The foundation had launched a call in January, closed in April with a thousand investment proposals received, and through this he had selected about fifty projects, including Cubbit, half of which he would have already sent a term sheet, a document that defines the terms of the investment and initiates the procedures to finalize it. Non-binding documents, but which demonstrate how Enea Tech was fully operational until a few days ago. According to some exponents of the world of innovation, Enea Tech would have become a problem because it was preparing to invest in a sector, that of innovative startups and SMEs already present on the market, whose supervision was entrusted to Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, but by Enea Tech categorically deny it, claiming to have always and only worked on individual projects in the pre-competitive field, not already on the market. In the meantime, everything has stopped for twenty days. “They contacted us a week after sending us the term sheet informing us that for the moment everything is suspended – says Cillario, whose project had among the partners the University of Bologna and CERN of Geneva – We, like others, are working on research and development projects that would never be without this type of support born in this moment, and we were all confused “
“The government has talked about ‘refocusing’ the allocation – he comments Francesco Cerrutti, director of VC Hub Italia, the venture capital association – It is true that 300 million euros remain to be invested in the other verticals, but Enea Tech is no longer there and the new foundation, which is called Enea Biomedical Tech, will have to invest not 200 million, but at least 200 million in the biomedical sector, which suggests that the rest is also going in that direction. “According to what was learned from Italian Tech, however, a hundred million euros could be enough to follow up on the projects they had achieved an advanced phase of discussion with Enea Tech. Meanwhile, there are those who have left their jobs waiting to sign with the foundation: “The opportunity and the potential that ENEA Tech was seeing in us (and with us) helped us to decide to launch – they write on the site Marco Bevilacqua, Pietro Balda e Gabriele Bergoglio, founders of Reefilla, a startup that develops an innovative charging system for electric vehicles – we’re not sure we would have done it otherwise. Now, overnight we have lost the main economic and organizational support for our initiative. “The team has, however, chosen to go ahead, looking for capital elsewhere. Cerrutti comments:” The most important issue is the way in which innovation is approached in the our country and the signal given is not positive, because first a choice was made in one direction and now we are going in a different one “.
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