“In the United States, 40% of GDP is produced by companies that are less than 30 years old, i.e. startups or former startups”. Following the approval of the Development decree, which provides for the first time in Italy legislation on the digital world and on the phenomenon of innovative companies, Enrico Gasperini, Founder and President of Digital Magics, the main Italian startup incubator, based in Milan, warns: "The decree is only a beginning, but in Italy we are still at zero: it will take many years, and the mission is crucial, in fact it is a question of regulating and promoting an ecosystem that will have to account for nearly half of GDP growth.
Gasperini founded Digital Magics in 2004 and then made it in 2008 an excellent example of cross between incubator – which offers mentorship, business management, strategic and financial services, product development, marketing and communication, logistical, technical, administrative support – and venture capital, which offers economic support to budding small companies by investing in their "flowering" and then selling them on the market, as has already happened on five occasions, when 5 million euros were raised from the exits and immediately reinvested in the 20 projects currently in the portfolio. Digital Magics has created over 300 jobs since its foundation through 30 new startups, 5 of which have been sold on the market.
The two largest exits, TheBlogTv and Bibop, companies specializing in the development of multi-platform digital multimedia content, were however made abroad, to be precise with two British investment funds. Precisely because, as Gasperini says, "in Italy there is still no ecosystem. Government reform is essential, but now all parties need to play their part. Creative young people, universities, public and private research centres, incubators, investors and then the market”. The market is currently the one that seems further behind, stopped by the crisis and by the old production model based on small and medium-sized industrial enterprises and on the support of bank credit, and that it has not yet adapted to innovation, digitization and research. “Which is why – explains Gasperini – the government must not limit itself to regulating, which is a positive and necessary thing, but must encourage and attract capital flows. As? Not only by reducing initial expenses and streamlining bureaucracy, which are important but I would say secondary issues, but by providing incentives and facilitating financing mechanisms, such as through fund of funds and crowdfunding for example".
“The Development decree – continues Gasperini – approved yesterday is an excellent start. A first and important step forward by the Italian government: we have finally equipped ourselves with a Digital Agenda. As for the part on the startup ecosystem, the first impression, pending the final text and the implementing decrees, is good: there are many useful tools to get the seed part of the supply chain off the ground".
In short, make sure that the ideas and the great ferment that exist in Italy ("We collect 200-300 projects a year, this year we have even doubled: we are at 500"), can find an outlet on the national territory, for example with the large publishing and telecommunications groups, which have so far been on the run, while “in Germany 50% of exits are made by large national media & telco groups”. “My fear – confesses the President of Digital Magics – is precisely that of wasting this great opportunity and ending up being colonized, as unfortunately happens in many sectors, even on technological startups: partly because this ecosystem could, due to the too many individualities at stake and a mentality that is struggling to take off, not being able to be born, and partly because, even being born it could find itself swallowed up by large foreign investors due to the absence of the right synergy between the public and private sectors in Italy".
A great opportunity which, taking advantage of the attention finally received from the executive, should instead be pursued on the front line, in the wake of the great tradition of the boot in the field of small and medium-sized enterprises. “Italian companies – concludes Gasperini – they should take an example from the world's big hi-tech companies, such as Apple and Google, which are outsourcing, as far as research and innovation are concerned, more and more services making use of Silicon Valley start-ups, but also of European ones”.
