Intesa Sanpaolo accelerates innovation, investing in the growth of new fintech realities, through the creation of Neva Finventures, the new Corporate Venture Capital investment company of the banking group.
The newco, 100% owned by Intesa Sanpaolo, will have an initial endowment of 30 million euro and will be focused on investments in fintech start-ups, synergistic with the group's activities or with new potentially disruptive business models for the sector .
"The establishment of Neva Finventures confirms the importance of innovation for our group and its commitment to renew itself and look proactively to the future and to the challenges of the market - explains Carlo Messina, managing director and CEO of Intesa Sanpaolo - For Intesa Sanpaolo is a long-term investment, aimed at seizing the most promising opportunities also at an international level, with the aim of promoting growth and continuously improving the level of its services".
There is also the possibility of investing part of the endowment in Venture Capital funds specialized in Fintech realities, in order to facilitate access to quality deal flows at an international level. The company will be able to extend the budget for investments up to a maximum of 100 million euro, subject to the issue of a specific resolution by Intesa Sanpaolo.
The activities of the Corporate Venture Capital fund are continuously and complementary to the investment activity in innovative realities that the Intesa Sanpaolo Group has been pursuing since 2008, through the Atlante fund system. Neva Finventures will mainly make minority investments together with other institutional investors, with particular attention to international markets, primarily the United States, Europe and Israel. The start-ups will receive not only capital, but also the opportunity to grow in synergy with the business units of the main Italian banking group, and among the first in Europe.
“Start-ups in the financial sector represent a fundamental opportunity for the evolution of our sector. Many young innovative companies are already helping to change traditional business models: I am thinking, for example, of electronic payments, personal finance of financial Big Data, Capital Markets and Insurance - underlines Maurizio Montagnese, chief innovation officer of Intesa Sanpaolo - For being able to compete in an increasingly aggressive and fast-paced market, we will invest directly in the fintech start-ups that we deem most promising, thus contributing to increasing the innovation rate of our group, in line with the Business Plan which identifies innovation as one of the pillars of strategic development”.
