Di recente, il Ministero delle Imprese e del Made in Italy ha rifinanziato con una dotazione di 108 milioni di euro la misura nazionale Smart&Start, gestita dal soggetto gestore Invitalia, volta a sostenere l’avvio e lo sviluppo delle startup innovative costituite da meno di 60 mesi ed aventi piccola dimensione. La misura prevede agevolazioni piuttosto consistenti sotto forma di:
Recently, the Ministry of Business and Made in Italy refinanced with an endowment of 108 million euros the national Smart&Start measure, managed by the managing entity Invitalia, aimed at supporting the startup and development of innovative startups established for less than 60 months and having a small size. The measure provides quite substantial facilities in the form of:
- subsidized, interest-free financing in the amount of 80% of eligible expenses, which can be raised to 90% in some specific cases.
- conversion of a portion of the subsidized financing obtained into a non-repayable grant: innovative start-ups that have already raised venture capital investments may apply for conversion of the subsidized financing already obtained into a non-repayable grant, up to an amount equal to 50% of the sums contributed by third-party investors or by natural person partners and, in any case, up to a maximum amount of 50% of the total facilities granted.
To date, the initiative has financed about 1,500 companies (including startups and SMEs), activating investments of more than 750 million euros and disbursing contributions of 580 million.
Innovation-Plaza, the IMC Group company dedicated to fundraising and subsidized finance support services, believes that Smart&Start represents a great opportunity for young startups and a measure of success because it supports investments in sectors strongly devoted to innovation, starting from technological ones to those that devote attention to environmental, health-related and social issues.
The application of initiatives under this measure could be facilitated by the support of an advisor such as Innovation-Plaza, which, strengthened by its experience in the management of such types of applications, can support the startup in accessing and populating the sections provided in the platform for the administrative part, but above all contribute to the consolidation of the entire project proposal in terms of context analysis of the proposed issues.
In general, the Innovation-Plaza team will be able to support the startup and businesses in several aspects:
- reducing the tasks that arise from managing the implementation and reporting phase of the initiatives that the entity is required to do if it has been eligible for facilitation;
- increase the awareness of the enterprise in the implementation of the investment program, without having to indulge in the unawareness of the actual time required to carry out the project process.
Last but not least, working with the Innovation-Plaza team may reduce the amount of time spent scouting for new opportunities and profitable initiatives to which the fledgling company should plan to devote part of its resource commitment.
The particularity of the Smart&Start measure, launched in 2014 to help young innovative companies take their first steps and face growth (a mentoring service is also provided), stems from the scope of eligible expenses.
Indeed, these include tangible fixed assets (plant, machinery and technological equipment, brand new), intangible fixed assets (patents, trademarks and licenses, certifications, know-how and technical knowledge, even if not patented) services for design, development, customization and testing of IT architectural solutions and production technology equipment; specialized technological consultancy; services provided by business incubators and accelerators and those related to marketing and web-marketing; costs related to collaborations established with research organizations for the purpose of implementing the business plan; expenses for employees and collaborators; and in addition, expenses for raw materials and services necessary to carry out the business activity (to the extent of 20% of the aforementioned expenses).
The Smart&Start measure is particularly interesting for startups since in some cases the subsidized financing of eligible expenses can reach 90 percent: this element makes it possible to address issues related to the availability of economic resources that startups are insufficiently equipped with in the early periods of their life.
Such remarks can be addressed more confidently by the startup with the support of an advisor, such as Innovation-Plaza, that based on its experience, with an “out of the building” point of view, can closely support the setting up of reliable investment programs.
Francesco Carolla, Managing Partner Innovation-Plaza
