The start-up ATM – La Stampa

The ATM of Italian startups opens today: a place to present your plan and get 150 thousand euros after an analysis of up to two weeks in exchange for a small share of your company (5/7 percent). There is no trick and there is no deception, as the auctioneers in the squares once said. And there are also no limits, neither in the technological sector, nor in the maximum ceiling of the fund, although as we shall see some hypotheses can be made. Behind this unprecedented initiative for Italy, there is Exor, the financial company of the Agnelli family, and in particular Exor Seeds, the vehicle that deals with investments in startups where Diego Piacentini has landed as president for a few months, already top manager of Apple and Amazon and then commissioner for Digital Italy until 2018. It was Piacentini, together with the director of Exor Seeds Noam Ohana, the creator of the “Italy Seeds” project which starts from an entrepreneurial reasoning.

In fact, this is not a charity operation, nor patronage, but a prudent investment in the talent of Italian entrepreneurs that starts from a given: the Italy of startups suffers a delay of about five years compared to other European countries, such as France where we there are over 40 unicorns, or startups with a valuation of over one billion euros; in Italy there are one or two. It means that in the next few years around forty startups will make a splash here too.

The year of Italian startups

by Riccardo Luna

December 27, 2021

Which? The only way to find out is to invest in all or most of the new companies on the launch pad. But at the same time investing in all or almost all the new companies on the launch pad is the only way for many to take flight and not remain dreams in a drawer. Piacentini says he has an investment a week as his goal: it means around 8 million euros divided between about fifty startups a year; if even one of them becomes a unicorn, the game will be overwhelming. It’s time to open drawers and let dreams fly.