Bank organises UniCredit Tech Day in Turin, bringing together investors and Italy's leading start-ups and scale-ups, and spreading word of its financial and social innovation through buddybank and Social Impact Banking.
UniCredit has reaffirmed its critical role in Italian innovation by participating in Italian Tech Week 2019 in Turin.
Today, the Bank held the UniCredit Tech Day at Unimanagement, the Group's international training centre. The day consisted of a programme of meetings to exchange points of view, scouting opportunities relating to innovation, telling investors the stories of a number of fast-growing scale-ups for which UniCredit has developed a tailored programme, the Founders' Club.
Throughout Italian Tech Week 2019, the Bank will also take part in discussions on financial and social innovation.
Building on the experience gained through UniCredit Start Lab, the acceleration programme for new entrepreneurs, the Bank today brought together representatives of some of the world's leading innovators - fast-growing tech "scale-ups": Marco Astorri (CEO of Bio-On), Carlo Giordano (CEO of Immobiliare.it), Marco Marlia (CEO di MotorK) and Davide Dattoli (CEO of Talent Garden).
In addition to the above, a roundtable focused on sector trends and the future dynamics of investments in start-ups was held with Amrita Sarkar (Investment Director of the Air Liquid venture capital fund), Alfredo Maria De Falco (Deputy Head of UniCredit CIB and Head of CIB Italy), Carlo Mammola (CEO of the Fondo Italiano di Investimento), Luca Bocchio (Principal of Accel) and Pierre-Henri Carles (Head of Alternative & Real Assets of Amundi Italy).
Oliver Khayat, UniCredit's Co-CEO Commercial Banking Western Europe, said: 'The European venture capital market is still a long way from the United States, both in terms of deals signed and of volumes. That said, there is no shortage of positive signs: median deal size, for example, is nearing US standards, up from $3. million in 2015 to $9.3 million today (1Q19). The proportion of corporate venture capital deals, where large companies commit risk capital, has risen to 20-25% of the total in comparison to 10% in 2015. All of this indicates that a European style of venture capital investment in high potential sectors is possible. UniCredit, through its extensive and well-established network of connections with corporates, institutions and investors is an ideal partner to help innovation champions to identify the best solution to further their growth, also leveraging on extraordinary deals and accessing international capital markets.'
Francesco Giordano, UniCredit's Co-CEO Commercial Banking Western Europe, added: 'We have now in Italy a 20% market share with start-ups and innovative SMEs. In recent years we have not only supported investments in innovation made by our business clients, but we have also promoted the type of bottom-up"innovation that is led by start-ups. This has been done through an ad hoc acceleration programme, "UniCredit Start Lab", which has seen us support 300 start-ups from a pool of just under 5,000 projects, offering them both an advisory system and our network of contacts with companies and investors. For more structured start-ups, with over €10 million in sales, we have instead provided access to our Founders Club, which helps them scale up operations through mentorship and targeted contact with a network of institutional investors, specialist funds and venture capital firms.'
UniCredit StartLab is the Bank's acceleration and Open Innovation programme for new entrepreneurs in the Digital, Innovative Made in Italy, Clean Tech and Life Science sectors. Since its first edition in 2009 (under the name 'Talento delle Idee'), the programme has provided support to 300 start-ups chosen from over 5,000 candidate projects. The winners of the last edition, which saw more than 600 applications received after a 14-stage road-show through Italy, will benefit from initiatives designed to enhance their networks through sector-specific meetings with clients, mentoring, advanced and increasingly international management training with the Startup Academy and tailored banking services. The winning start-up in each of the four categories, as judged by committees, will also receive a grant of €10,000.
The Founders' Club is the programme developed by UniCredit for Italy's best scale-ups. Its participants are 50 high-tech companies in the Life Science, Digital, Industrial and Innovative Made in Italy sectors, with a well-established business model, international operations and equity rounds of at least €10 million. The aim of the initiative is to provide practical support for these fast-growing companies, strengthening their capital market awareness through technical insights and exclusive connections with leading entrepreneurs and investors.
SOCIAL IMPACT BANKING: On Thursday 27 June, UniCredit - with representatives from Social Impact Banking, the programme that aims to contribute to the development of a fairer and more inclusive society - will also take part in "La Finanza per l'impatto sociale" (Finance for Social Impact) at midday in the Auditorium Reale Group, an event organised as part of the "Impact ability" day.
BUDDYBANK: Finally, on Friday 28 June, UniCredit will present the case of buddybank, the first bank in Italy to be designed with an interaction model for iPhone.
Turin, 26 June 2019
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