Italian start-ups stand out for their digital, social and sustainable nature, with a prevailing focus on the B2B market, mainly in the ICT and business services sector. This is the picture painted by the Assintel Report Speciale Startup, presented last week in Milan by Confcommercio's Italian association of ICT companies. The research was conducted by the Ixé Institute in the first four months of the year with the support of Grenke, Intesa Sanpaolo, TIM and Open Gate Italia.
Data from the Assintel Startup Special Report
The report shows that most Italian start-ups are small businesses (83% have fewer than 10 employees, 72.6% have fewer than 5 partners), with half of them already in the scale-up (52.7%) or commercial launch phase (26.9%). 64.3% of the start-ups operate mainly in the B2B market. The most represented market segments are ICT (38.1%), business products and services (37.4%), healthcare, pharma and biotech (18%), manufacturing (17.3%), finance and food & beverage (17%).
Almost all start-ups (99%) have an online presence, either through websites or social media. LinkedIn is the preferred social network (85%), followed by Facebook (57.8%), Instagram (57.1%), YouTube (31.3%), TikTok (12.9%) and X (10.5%).
Technology and innovation
Some interesting data emerge on the front of new technologies, an area in which innovative Italian SMEs invest to generate competitive advantages. The most adopted technologies are artificial intelligence (43.9%), digital platforms (32%), cloud computing (28.9%) and social media marketing systems (28.9%). 58.1% of start-ups own or are developing proprietary technologies, a percentage that rises to 90.1% among Assintel members. Furthermore, 38.4% have already developed or are developing patents, a percentage that increases to 52% for Assintel members.
Sustainability
68% of the start-ups surveyed declared that their product has an ecological and sustainable impact, with peaks of 75.6% in the energy/utilities sector, 75.5% in healthcare/pharma/biotech, 72% in finance and 71.4% in ICT. This shows a strong interest in sustainability, which is confirmed by the fact that the start-ups in the Assintel ecosystem are offered a specific assessment, Value's Metrics, which links ESG indices to reward criteria. This tool also helps companies when they wish to get in touch with investors who share a sustainability philosophy.
Gender Equality
Unfortunately, difficulties in gender inclusiveness persist, especially in STEM disciplines, but in general this phenomenon is quite transversal. 46% of start-ups have at least one woman as a founding partner, but only 25% of start-ups have women on their boards, and only 21.9% have a woman as CEO. It is hopeful that new start-ups show a higher female presence, with an average of 37% in CDAs.
Dante Laudisa, vice-president of Assintel and coordinator of the #startuphub2030 project, commented that the aim of this research was not just a mapping of Italian start-ups, but an in-depth analysis of the most innovative realities, to highlight their peculiarities and direct investors towards targeted support for the development of this valuable ecosystem. This project aims to support the growth of start-ups through paths that promote distributive, generative and sustainable finance. Assintel-associated start-ups show better results in various metrics, as being part of the Assintel ecosystem enables a sharing of core values and content.
Laudisa concluded by emphasising that the world of innovative Italian start-ups is like a new genome that carries the sap of innovation in its entrepreneurial DNA and that we must learn to systematically support it with valorisation policies, highlighting the need for bureaucratic simplifications and less conservative credit granting.
For more information on the winners of the Assintel Digital Awards 2024, please visit this link: https://www.assintel.it/sala-stampa-2/assintelreport-speciale-startup-2024/