Table of contents
The new 2024 Budget Law
The new 2024 Budget Law for the industrial sector and especially for startups is quite meager. On the contrary, it seems to have disappointed the expectations set at the beginning of the mandate. The New Budget Law allocates final expenses for the MIMIT, in terms of accrual, of €18,225.8 million in 2024 (-4.9% compared to 2023), €15,320.4 million for 2025 and €9,426.7 million for 2026. First of all, there is the refinancing of the Nuova Sabatini, a basic version compared to the previous one, where 150 million had been allocated, plus a further 50 million last October, for a total of 200 million in 2023. Now, in 2024, only 100 million. If rates are high and banks provide less funding, government intervention is more complicated. It would be necessary to start again from the banks, perhaps aiming with some intervention at the Central Guarantee Fund, an excellent tool already used in the past during the pandemic period. Then there are the development contracts, which, as for 2023, will also be allocated in total for 2024 an additional 190 million, no more and no less. And in the new Manoeuvre there is still no coverage on some refinancing in the past considered a priority, such as the IPCEI (research projects of common European interest) for which the Mimit had estimated a need of 750 million euros for the first year alone: it was news a few days ago that the European Commission approved 409 million. There are also no funds for the space economy, telecommunications, automotive, microelectronics, trade fairs, industrial crisis areas and startups that invest in industrial property. Also with regard to the incentives related to Transition 4.0 , everything seems to be on standby. In 2020-21, 120 thousand tax credits were requested by companies with Transition 4.0 for 6.7 billion (2022 data are still missing). Probably everything is up in the air for RepowerEu (European energy plan to be integrated into the NRRPs that provides additional resources to member states for the financing of energy projects). In the meantime, companies must evaluate whether to focus on the current concessions or postpone investments in the hope that 5.0 will offer more generous rates. Oh yes, because now the Mimit would like to change the label of the plan:
Industry 5.0
should be the revision with greener objectives. With the negotiations with Brussels on RepowerEU, the government would count on covering with this new chapter of the PNRR 4 billion for tax credits 5.0 and 1.5 billion for an additional tax credit, to be integrated into the Plan, for the self-consumption of energy from renewable sources in production processes. It would have been an opportunity to refinance Tansizione 4.0, Ricerca e sviluppo and Formazione 4.0. But the lack of refinancing is actually a remnant of previous governments’ policies. These were good tools that small companies, small industries, such as startups and innovative SMEs used. Doing research and development costs money and the state seems intent on incentivizing it for some time: from 50% in 2020 to 20% in 2022 to 10% in 2023. And the new Budget has not raised it. From all these manoeuvres, this government’s strategy would seem to help that part of industries that are already “strong”, more than the smaller ones that innovate. The new Budget Law, however, also focuses a lot on SEZs (special economic zones): these are geographical areas that the government has circumscribed where in exchange for investment in those areas there is in exchange a tax credit for the purchase of plants, equipment, etc., for example, for 2024 the new tax credit allocated and intended for those who invest in the South will be 1.8 billion euros, And it will enter the scene from 1 January 2024. This manoeuvre is very positive for those realities such as startups and innovative SMEs that want to start from these areas by expanding the ecosystem”. The expectation is now known: the new Budget has always been approved in the last week of the year; then it will have to take on board the requests of the individual political parties, as well as the requests of the social partners (first and foremost Confindustria, from which a decisive stance is expected for the relaunch of Transition 5.0). A large number of amendments have been tabled so far, and they are likely to be postponed until after the Christmas holidays.
The new PNRR
Only a few crumbs would seem to come from the Government for Italian startups in 2024: 100 million euros from the new PNRR
to support startups and promote the digital transition in various areas, with a focus on artificial intelligence, cloud, healthcare, industry 4.0, cybersecurity, fintech, blockchain and other sectors. The Plan started in 2021 with a budget of €235.12 billion, but after approval by the European Commission and Ecofin in 2023, an additional €21.4 billion is on the way, of which €2.9 billion for RepowerEU. With regard to the digital transition, the revised Plan provides for innovative investments in the field of technologies, support for startups and research and development, allocating 25.6% of total resources to these objectives, a slight increase compared to 25.1% in the original Plan. These investments focus on areas such as connectivity, digitalisation of public administration and the development of digital skills. But again: Of the additional $21.4 billion, only $100 million will go to startups.
AI and Startups
Maybe something could come in 2024 from the artificial intelligence venture capital fund. Alessandro Butti, Undersecretary for Innovation at Palazzo Chigi, explained to Il Sole 24 Ore that “The venture capital fund’s project on artificial intelligence is at an advanced stage of development and involves the Department for Digital Transformation, the National Cybersecurity Agency and Cassa Depositi e Prestiti. The financial instrument will be aimed at innovative start-ups and SMEs active in the AI sector and is expected to reach over €600 million. The technical-administrative activities instrumental to the establishment of the fund are currently underway and its entry into operation is expected during the first half of 2024″. In short, in Italy we are far from other economies similar to ours, even if we are growing. According to the
Anitec-Assinform report
, the Italian AI market reached €435 million in 2022, 32% more than in 2021. For 2023, the value is expected to be around €570 million, a growth of 31% compared to 2022. So between 2020 and 2023, the AI market doubled in value, with an increase of 128%. In the coming years, the average annual growth rate could be 28.9% until 2026, reaching a volume of €1.2 billion. According to
Visual Capitalist
, 1337 AI startups were born in China between 2013-2022 and were financed with 95 billion in private investment. In the U.S., there are 4643 startups and 249 billion. Saudi Arabia recently bought about 3,000 H100 processors from Nvidia, the ones needed for AI. Europe does not seem to be united: France wants to run alone: weeks ago it launched an AI laboratory with private investments worth 300 million euros. “But Italy has a national average of companies that adopt AI solutions of about 35%, compared to 43% of the European average, even if we suffer more than others from the net imbalance between large players and small companies, among which just 6% of the total has an active AI project,” Butti said in another interview this year. We are talking about a market that generated $40 billion
in 2022, will probably create a business of $1,300 billion by 2032. And, this week’s news, it is precisely the beginning of the approval process regarding the European AI Act, a first step. Now, if in this vein the doubts and concerns of many creep in, on how such a European regulation on AI could make investments flee from the old continent, imagine in Italy the clamor generated by such news – do not forget the media storm that took place this year with the Privacy Guarantor and ChatGPT. In the last editorial of StartupBusiness , we focused on this game, the regulatory one. In this context, it is good to propose the reflection again: if it is true that regulations can be an element of brake on innovation, it is also, and above all, true that having uncoordinated and non-homogeneous regulations, as is currently the case for startups in Europe, represents a multiplication of this brake. Therefore, also in view of the upcoming European elections, a proposal to harmonize the way in which European startups develop, raise funds, and go to market, could represent an almost unique opportunity to demonstrate how the regulatory aspect can effectively become a driving force for innovation. (Photo by Marco Oriolesi on Unsplash)
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