Italy is and remains behind in startups. There is still little bet on young companies. After the exploit of 2022 (2 billion euros of investments), in 2023 it dropped by almost half and the first half of 2024 recorded -48% compared to the first 6 months of the previous year. The photograph was taken on the eve of the fourth edition of Rome Startup Weekthe international festival organized on September 19 and 20 by Roma Startup together with Future4 Comunicazione, Orange Media Group and The Growth Kitchen. Here the government will be asked to intervene, with a new startup act, after the one in 2013. “It is time to follow the international rules of the subjects that have been playing this game for sixty years like the USA, for 25 years like Germany and Great Britain or for 15 years like France. In Paris in 2010 they invested 100 million a year and today we are already talking about 12 billion. And what about Italy? That the matrix of our startup act was wrong has been evident for years, but it is becoming dramatically evident today because now any industrialized country is generating new multinationals in the sector, while we continue to be absent”, explains Gianmarco Carnovale president of Roma Startup and member of the board of Allied For Startups.
In 2022, investments in startups in Italy reached 2 billion euros, a feat. In 2023, they fell by 51.5% with 1.130 billion euros in Italy, compared to 41 billion raised in Europe by startups. In the first 6 months of this year, investments (87 deals) in Italy reached 250 million euros (-48% compared to the first 6 months of 2023). In which sectors? IT (7.8%), biotech (7.8%), software (6.7%), manufacturing (6%) and then human resources, technologies applied to sport and space tech (5.6%). Last in the ranking (3.2%) for transport, food, fintech, AI, fashion and e-commerce. At the end of 2023, there were 16,500 startups active in Italy (over 4,000 are in Lombardy). Businesses led by women are 22.2% and innovative startups with a female founder are just over one in 10. As for investments, the lion’s share are rounds from 1 to 5 million euros (41.3%), followed by those between 500 thousand and 1 million euros (34.8%). Only 9% concern investments from 5 to 10 million and above 10 million. Lombardy is the region with the most funding (48.27%). Followed by: Lazio (14.9%); Piedmont (9.19%), Campania, Tuscany, Veneto, Emilia-Romagna and Umbria (3.44%).
In Europe? There are 41 thousand active startups and they are mostly in London, Berlin, Barcelona and Amsterdam. In the rest of Europe the sectors in which the most investments have been made are different from the Italian ones: eCommerce, Marketplace and Mobile (the most active since 2018) and Fintech. Unicorns? Only 7 startups have reached the value of 1 billion euros in 2023, against 48 in the boom year, 2022. Here investments in the first three months of the year alone were 11 billion euros.
Among industrialized countries, Italy is therefore lagging behind in investments in venture capital and new globally scalable technology companies, even though the number of investors (Venture Capital and Business Angels) with expertise and knowledge in the field of startups is increasing. But the lack of density (little aggregation of innovation communities) and industry culture slow down the growth of the sector and slow down investments not only to increase the number of startups but above all to become competitive on a global level. This in turn leads to fewer jobs, brain drain from Italy and demographic collapse that has a clear impact on the general Italian system. “The countries in the world that are pushing more on venture capital and startups are reversing the demographic winter. More venture capital and startups means more qualified jobs for young people who therefore have more peace of mind in starting a family. It is a way to retain well-paid talents who have children”, adds Carnovale.
This is not a question that concerns only Rome. All of Europe, even if other countries are going faster, is all chasing the United States and China. And so from the Rome festival (50 events and 30 delegations of countries, the best of Italy and the Mediterranean basin) a manifesto for a new startup act will be launched. “In 2013, the system of the innovation industry was outlined in an approximate and contradictory way. Only a few wrong definitions were established and not the models and relationships that intervene between all the subjects that make up the startup ecosystem. Today it is time to play with the international rules”, concludes Carnovale.
