In recent years, Italian businesses started by young people have progressively decreased. The current crisis has exponentially reduced the possibilities of obtaining financing and the tangled bureaucratic procedures of our country have held back numerous initiatives. An important turning point should arise thanks to a measure launched by the Monti government and contained in the recent liberalization decree. This is a rule that allows entrepreneurs under 35 to create a "limited liability company" with one euro of share capital and without notary fees, as it will be sufficient to deposit the deed of incorporation, exempt from stamp duties, at the of the commercial register.
Government intervention could therefore represent a real turning point for the new generations. In fact, until now, initiatives aimed at promoting innovative ideas have been rare and occasional. Among them we must include business incubators, realities that provide tools and structures to support the growth of new companies. In Italy these experiences are mainly linked to universities or in any case to the public sector, while private ones are struggling to establish themselves. It is precisely for this reason that the case of H-Farm represents a virtuous anomaly in the Italian panorama. It is a project "born in 2005 to help young people create digital businesses - explains Riccardo Donadon, creator and president of the first private venture incubator in Italy". The activities that characterize H-Farm are essentially two. “We offer ourselves primarily as a simple incubator, providing our clients with a range of infrastructures: real estate, human resources, mentoring, marketing, branding, business development, finance administration, press office, legal office”. The other option is that related to venture capital. “every year we finance a dozen start-ups in equity, directly investing our capital. In the initial phase we enter the new company with a percentage between 15 and 20% of the share package”.
The name H-Farm perfectly embodies the spirit of the team led by Donadon. The company headquarters, located in the countryside of Ca'Tron (fraction of Roncade, province of Treviso), is completely surrounded by greenery and consists of hi-tech farmhouses. An ideal environment for cultivating projects, in a context in which the constant exchange of knowledge and contamination of ideas characterize daily work. Every year H-Farm supports a dozen start-ups chosen from over four hundred applications, entering the new companies with a minimum percentage of between 15 and 20% of the share package. For some realities, the funding has reached 2,5 million euros, but the average investment amounts to 500 thousand euros. “We have launched almost 30 companies on the market and some – observes Donadon – have become totally autonomous even if they still use our structures”. In fact, after three or four years of activity, H-Farm sells its share of the companies it deems mature and self-sufficient enough. One of them is Zooppa, which has grown at a dizzying pace to become one of the world leaders in the digital advertising sector. The satisfactions obtained are already numerous, but Donadon's ambitions are still in the initial phase. After all, the character is not new to certain successes, given that in 1996 he founded E-Tree, a company born at the dawn of the internet revolution and then sold in 2003 to the Etnoteam group.
The entrepreneur from Veneto has managed to open an office in London and also land on two other continents, thanks to the offices inaugurated in Seattle and Mumbai. However, the goal is to organize a technological district of excellence in the Veneto region, in the style of the American Silicon Valley. “We want to aggregate different initiatives, to trigger mechanisms of virtuous complementarity. The idea is to bring together young companies that are bearers of strong technological innovations”. H-Farm is now a point of reference for the world of start-ups and is attracting more and more attention. Last April Renzo Rosso, owner of Diesel, formalized his entry into the share capital of the Donadon venture incubator through the direct acquisition of shares amounting to 4,5 million euros. In the previous months, the entry into the corporate structure of the T-Vision television group (Panto family) and of the president of Nice, Laura Buoro, had already been registered.
H-Farm's work is constantly evolving and, recently, it has also embraced the field of training. Last September Donadon inaugurated Digital Academia, a school that organizes digital entrepreneurship courses for about thirty students every year. Three months of theoretical lessons are planned, at the Ca'Tron facilities, plus a series of internships in the best companies in the Veneto region. Another stage in the process of building an Italian Silicon Valley. The hope is that this spirit of initiative will not turn out to be a cathedral in the desert, but will become the model for organizing a fertile fabric on which healthy young entrepreneurship can finally sprout.
