Innovative startups, 477 million from the Guarantee Fund for SMEs

As expected by Law Decree 179/2012, innovative startups intending to obtain a bank loan can request the intervention of the SME Guarantee Fund for free, following a simplified procedure which excludes any creditworthiness assessment beyond that already carried out by the institution, for guarantee operations up to 2,5 million euro. Now the Ministry of Economic Development certifies that a total of 30 startups had received a loan guaranteed by the Fund as at 2017 June 1.432, for a total of around 477 million (60 million more than last quarter), distributed over 2.243 operations (416 startups have received more than one loan). On average, the loans disbursed amount to around 212 thousand euros, and have a maturity of around four and a half years. Around a quarter of operations have an expected duration of less than 18 months. During the second quarter of 2017, the number of financing operations approved by the Guarantee Fund for SMEs towards innovative startups was the highest ever recorded: 403.

At present, transactions that have already reached maturity without activation of the guarantee represent 8,2% of the total, while 64,1% is regularly amortised. There are only 27 transactions for which the guarantee of the Fund has actually been activated, an extremely lower rate than that recorded by other recently established joint-stock companies (0,9% against 8,3%). This tool is used more frequently by innovative startups in the Centre-North: Lombardy stands out, which maintains the record for number of operations (588) and resources mobilized (over 153 million), Emilia-Romagna and Veneto. Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Trentino-Alto Adige are at the top for rate of use of the tool on the regional total of registered startups.

Since last year, the possibility of using the Guarantee Fund in a free and simplified way has also been extended to innovative SMEs. Since then, 101 transactions have been authorized with this type of company, of which 78 have already resulted in the disbursement of a loan, for a total disbursed of approximately 26 million, an increase of 7 million compared to last March 31st. These and many other empirical evidences are presented in the second Quarterly Report of 2017 on access to the Guarantee Fund by startups, innovative SMEs and certified incubators.

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