This year’s focus will be smart mobility. Applications open from 20 July to 11 October 2020.
The new Techstars Smart Mobility Accelerator, the first start-up acceleration programme in Europe dedicated to smart mobility, will be launched on 20th July. Activated a year ago as part of the partnership launched between Techstars, Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, Fondazione CRT and Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center, the initiative aims to promote the development of the city of Turin as an international ecosystem for innovation and its establishment as a successful model in Italy and Europe.
The event will take place at OGR Tech, the international innovation hub of Officine Grandi Riparazioni in Turin, redeveloped by Fondazione CRT, where start-ups will also benefit from the strategic support of mentors and managers with significant experience in the sector.
The focus will be on smart mobility, in particular technologies intended to improve the circulation of goods, people and services, technologies related to Smart Cities, Smart Infrastructures and Smart Environments, including sectors such as Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, IoT, Blockchain, VR/AR, robotics and the Circular Economy.
Francesco Profumo, Chair of Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo commented:
“In its role as ‘ecosystem developer’, Compagnia di San Paolo views startups as ‘multipliers’ in the pursuit of its SDG local development strategies. The integration of Techstars start-ups within the local industrial fabric is therefore an important part of a broader seeding action in Turin’s innovation ecosystem. Bringing together multiple complementary players, including founders, investors, large companies, institutions, universities and incubators is the winning model for a region that is finding a new development model. Guiding this effort is the desire to strengthen Turin’s strategic positioning as an international hub of innovators capable of exerting a centripetal force to attract excellent human capital.”
The first three-year programme accelerated 11 start-ups in 13 weeks, involving over 120 mentors, and was divided into three phases: mentoring, growth and investments, dedicated to comparing, listening, developing, studying business models and marketing.
Applications will be open from 20 July to 11 October 2020 and the programme will run from 25 January to 22 April 2021, ending with Demo Day, an event to present the results obtained to an audience of venture capitalists, business angels, investors, entrepreneurs and institutions, and to raise the necessary funding for the ideas to take off.
Interested start-ups can find out more by clicking here.