The Peninsula, on the other hand, travels hand in hand with Spain as regards the calculation of capital destined for technology companies, clearly lower than the average, despite the progress made in recent years. In fact, investments in Italy tend to be oriented towards early-stage operations, under 20 million dollars, showing in this field even better numbers than the United Kingdom, while in terms of market capitalization we are in eighth position thanks to a very contained, the lowest ever at European level.
The limited startup ecosystem
There are therefore positive signs, as confirmed by the analysts of Atomico, and the unicorn status achieved by Satispay and ScalaPay, both of which have reached a valuation of more than a billion dollars, is certainly among them. Italy still has a huge margin for improvement, because it is still very underweighted by capital investments compared to other countries: Italian tech startups represent 6% of the European ones (which are around 170,000 overall, for over 2.6 million of employees) and pays for the fact that investments tend to favor the initial stages of the development of a new business.
We are therefore far from the numbers exhibited by the main start-up ecosystems but it is reasonable to expect, according to experts, that the leap forward is imminent, also thanks to a regulatory framework (the law for startups) and initiatives to support innovation which in recent years have acted as a driving force for the expansion of the movement.
Post-crisis perspectives
Ignoring that 2022 was a difficult year, Atomico finally admits, is impossible given the combination of negative events that have generated the most difficult macroeconomic context since the global financial crisis of 2008. Yet there are clear signs that indicate that the fundamentals of the European technological ecosystem have remained strong, both due to the rapid maturation demonstrated and due to the wide availability of still unused capital to invest.
The early stage rounds in the Old Continent, this is a starting point, continue to be in line with those of the United States (31% of globally distributed funding goes to European tech startups, compared to 33% of those with stars and strips) and the pipeline of talent that revolves around this universe is the largest ever. The real “success” of the European tech industry, the analysts conclude, is not so much about the valuations and value of the capital markets, but rather about the ability to drive innovation and create long-term companies.