#StartupDay Is an Opportunity to Make the Big Leap

THE INITIATIVE IS OPEN TO THE COMMUNITIES OF BOCCONI AND MILAN POLYTECHNIC


Getting funded and obtaining expert views that certify the soundness of a business idea are the foremost concerns on startuppers’ minds. For several years now, Bocconi has been organizing the #StartupDay to facilitate and empower youth entrepreneurship. Citi Foundation collaborates with the event as part of the #pathways2progress initiative, thus helping fledgling companies that develop around the Bocconi community realize their objectives. Starting with the next edition (16 April 2019), the event will also be open to Milan Polytechnic students, alumni and faculty, following last year’s alliance struck between the two Universities (https://www.viasarfatti25.unibocconi.it/notizia.php?idArt=19957)

This year’s #StartupDay is structured in a morning devoted to the #ShareofIdeas, in which selected startups will have the opportunity to pitch their business to the public of investors as a whole (one-to-many), and in an afternoon dedicated to #Marketplace, involving private (one-to-one) meetings that had have previously been scheduled between startups and investors.

The people of the two universities that plan to develop their business ideas or are in the launch phase of their startups – including the ones hosted by the two Universities’ incubators, Speed MI Up and PoliHub, respectively – have until 18 February 2019 to present their applications (http://www.startupday.unibocconi.it/Rules).

In the first three editions of #StartupDay, 109 startups had the opportunity to talk to about fifty investors. The most represented sectors were, in order of relevance, fashion, health, food, education, and fintech. The event, as well as the Bocconi incubator, has fostered the creation of successful firms, such as Eligo Milano (eligomilano.com), MindTheGum (mindthegum.it), One.Tray (onetray.it) or Brave Potions (bravenotions.com), to name but a few.

A qualifying element of the initiative is the Training Camp that will help select companies prepare for their meeting with investors. Bocconi faculty and outsided experts will help aspiring entrepreneurs delve into the topics that are crucial to the launch of a new business idea, through a series of seminars and webinars that will end with the day of general rehearsal at Talent Garden. During this test session, a selected group of investors will provide feedback and suggestions to startuppers, in view of the April 16 event-

«The success of the #StartupDay initiative», says Stefano Caselli, Bocconi Dean of International Affairs and scientific director of the initiative, «can be seen by its becoming a business ecosystem. A spinoff of the #StartupDay is Fintech 4 Financial Inclusion, which last year brought the four students winners of competition of ideas on financial inclusion to visit the Citi Innovation Lab in Tel Aviv, one of the world’s startup capitals, BeReady2Fly (https://www.viasarfatti25.unibocconi.it/notizia.php?idArt=20224), even if it is aimed at companies that are ready for the scale-up, has a structure to #StartupDay: it is first joint initiative of Bocconi and the Polytechnic to support innovative entrepreneurship».

Ezio Ravaccia, of Solar Ventures and AME Ventures has in growing Italian companies in the past. For this reason, has has a strong interest in analyzing technological startups ready to make the step of scale-up. This year, he will return to #StartupDay, "because Italy needs initiatives to support entrepreneurship. I have been working in this market for over twenty years and the real novelty in recent years is the desire of young people to start companies; these people need more feedback than the managers coming out of large corporations to found start-ups, which “was the most common thing until a few years ago”. In past editions, he saw innovative technologies and, above all, interesting business models, "which become investment opportunities when they are managed by a well-equipped entrepreneur both in terms of strategic vision and operational capabilities".


Eugenio Morpurgo, CEO of Fineurop Soditic, is an investment banker, not a venture capitalist. He says: "My company has participated in the #StartupDay since the first edition, because Bocconi is building a really interesting platform and in Italy’s still small market for venture capital, initiatives of this kind are to be supported". Moreover, in past editions he got to meet startups which then achieved a measure of success, "so every time I see something interesting, I report it to my clients".
 
 

by Fabio Todesco
Translated by Alex Foti