The Italian venture capital industry is very young, and now is getting interesting. Domestic investors and professionals commenced to give proper attention to new entrepreneurial initiatives in 2012, when the Italian Government issued the Italian policy framework for innovative start-ups (also known as the “Start-up Act”).
The 2018 was the first remarkable year for the Italian venture capital industry, and 2019 is expected to follow this trend, mainly for the following elements:
- Investments are increasing: in 2018, investments in Italian start-ups and scale-ups tripled compared to the previous year;
For more info read: Italian venture capital investments are (finally) increasing: the market in 2018
- The Italian Government is establishing the National Fund for Innovation (FNI), with a budget of € 1 billion to invest in venture capital funds and innovative start-ups and SMEs;
- Private capital dedicated to start-up investment is growing: domestic firms are raising new and more generous funds (Programma 102, Sofinnova Telethon, Poli360 are few examples);
- International firms started to invest in the country, as the “quality” of new initiatives and the number of potential scale-ups are rising;
- First exits: in 2018, Italy recorded the first multi-million exits to international companies (Musement acquired by the German TUI Group, and Sellf acquired by the Spanish Force Manager);
- The number of professionals and operators dedicated to innovation and entrepreneurship is increasing; universities, banks, big consultancy and legal firms are creating special units dedicated to start-ups and scale-ups;
- Tax incentives for investors: with the 2019 Budget Law, the Italian Government intends to increase the tax incentives dedicated to investors in innovative start-ups and SMEs from 30% to 40%. It also introduced a 50% tax incentive for companies that acquire the entire share capital of innovative start-ups and SMEs, and maintain it for three years.
For more info read: Legal framework for innovative start-ups
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