Less bureaucracy and strengthening the venture capital investment market. From the stage of the Italian Tech Week entrepreneurs and investors have launched two direct messages to the government to come. The first is a unanimous chorus, on the sidelines of the interventions of startup founders capable of reaching billionaire valuations. All Italians, although in some cases they founded their company years ago where there were better conditions.
Loris Degioanni he has been in San Francisco for twenty years where he founded Sysdig: 800 employees, 140 of whom in Italy. “The problem of Italy? There is still too much bureaucracy. Here everything is still complicated. For example, getting a work visa or permit here is still difficult, ”Degioanni said. Concept reaffirmed by the other three entrepreneurs present in Turin. Everyone, when asked what it takes to improve the life of innovative companies in Italy, re-launch Degioanni’s request. They did it Vittoria Zanettico-founder of Poke House, Francesco Simoneschifounder of Trulayer, as well as Simone Mancini, guide of Scalapay. They have offices in every corner of the world but in Italy they encounter the same problem: too much bureaucracy.
IT Week 2022, Francesco Simoneschi (Truelayer): “To be successful, startup founders must fail gracefully”
It is a challenge for the new Parliament. Like that represented by the investment market. Degioanni and partners, in order to grow their business internationally, have raised venture capital funds unthinkable in Italy. According to data from Dealroom, 1.3 billion were invested in startups in Italy in 2022: constant growth, but lagging behind other European countries. If in Italy 18 euros per capita are spent on innovation, in France they are 140. And the rest of Europe runs. To reach those levels it is necessary to strengthen the investment market.
John Elkann, CEO of Exor, which through Gedi is the publisher of Repubblica, announced on the sidelines of the event that the holding has invested a billion in startups in five years. And from the panel to celebrate ten years of the Italian law for the sector came a proposal: to allocate 1-2% of the investments of the funds (institutional and pension funds) to innovative companies. For Gianluca Dettori, president of Primo Venture, one way could be to partially transform the INPS into a fund, because “by moving even just 1% of the assets managed by the INPS, the gap that exists could be recovered in the next ten years. it is between Italy and France ”. It is a hypothesis. However, shared by the other managers present at the panel and by Corrado Passera who, when he was Minister of Economic Development, wanted the law on startups in 2012. Today Passera leads Illimity, a banking group founded in 2018 with a strong technological propensity. A startup. Like all startups, they “create beautiful innovation, and are a good investment. A country that invests in startups is a country that works for its future, a better country ”, concluded the former minister.