Torino Cities of the Future Techstars Accelerator is a start-up acceleration programme that aims to attract the best entrepreneurial projects to Turin, from all over the world, focused on the cities of the future.
Goal:
High-Impact Innovation Department
In 2019, three prestigious institutions in our area – Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, Fondazione CRT and the Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center – decided to join forces to create the first Techstars acceleration programme in Italy.
With a 4-year commitment and an investment of over 12 million euros, the three partners intend to leverage the Techstars global network – which has managed acceleration programmes on all continents, generating a portfolio of 3340 companies with a total market capitalisation of 97 billion euros – to bring to Turin the best start-ups operating internationally in the development of frontier solutions to make the cities of tomorrow more sustainable, inclusive and resilient.
The acceleration programme will last 13 weeks, during which the start-ups will receive an investment of 120,000 dollars and be supported with their strategic decisions and the validation of market assumptions. This support will be provided by coaching “on the ground” from Techstars personnel and over 200 mentors selected internationally among entrepreneurs, managers, investors and domain experts. Completing the offer is access to the Techstars global network, which the startups can benefit from for life (“Techstars for Life”) to get advice, build partnerships and seek useful investments for growth.
Looking at the portfolio, in its first three years, the programme hosted 35 start-ups from 3 continents and 14 countries. The results achieved by the start-ups supported are particularly remarkable: following the programme, the companies raised more than 70 million euros of investments and created over 400 jobs. Also noteworthy are the connections established between the start-ups and Turin’s ecosystem: the hosted start-ups signed 34 contracts for PoCs and pilots commissioned by Italian clients and, at the end of the acceleration path, 3 foreign start-ups decided to open their own offices in Turin, thus creating Italian companies.
For Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, which considers startup companies to be “multipliers” in the pursuit of its own local development strategies focused on the SDGs, this initiative is an excellent opportunity to consolidate is role as an ecosystem developer for Turin in the technological innovation sector. The integration of Techstars start-ups with the local industrial fabric is therefore an important element of a broader action aimed at cultivating a lively innovation ecosystem in Turin that can bring together multiple complementary actors, including founders, investors, large companies, universities and incubators.
In the medium term, by hybridising patient capital and managerial skills, Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo is laying a path aimed at enhancing and systematising the results achieved by the Techstars acceleration programme locally, involving institutional stakeholders and actors from its own group, including Fondazione LINKS, LIFTT, Equiter, I3P and 2i3T. Guiding this effort is the FCSP’s desire to strengthen Turin’s strategic positioning as an international hub for innovators capable of exerting centripetal force to attract excellent human capital.
