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Italy Summit. is the event organized by Plug and Play that in the last edition held in Milan brought together over 400 startups, large companies, venture capitalists and investors from the aerospace, fintech, food & beverage, mobility and sustainability sectors.
The goal was to address the most current global challenges, from security to climate change, to the evolution of consumers and their needs with the help of quantum computing and artificial intelligence, a technology that, according to FactSet’s analysis, has catalyzed the interest of Fortune 500 companies by 14 times more in the last 7 years, as evidenced by the incidence of the theme in earnings calls.
The Italy Summit identified innovation and the world of investments, from venture clienting to corporate venture capital to corporate venture building, as the engine to face the transition to a safer world and designed the face of the Italian early stage ecosystem, which today is worth more than 1.4 billion euros, with 373 investments in startups based in Italy and 32 in foreign startups promoted by Italian founders.
Artificial intelligence
Six out of ten large Italian companies in Italy have launched artificial intelligence projects. The market is running and, in 2023, marks +52%, reaching a value of 760 million euros. The investments concern text analysis and interpretation solutions for semantic search, classification, synthesis and explanation of traditional documents or conversational agents. Of these, 38 million euros are dedicated to Generative AI programs: this is what emerges from the Artificial Intelligence Observatory 2024 of the Politecnico di Milano.
“The Plug and Play team has dedicated a large part of its performance to artificial intelligence, whose technological thrust is comparable to disruptive innovations of the past such as the arrival of the car to the mass market with the Ford Model T, or the Information Age, which began with Intel’s microprocessors in 1971. The technology in question is in fact increasingly becoming the protagonist of a new techno-economic paradigm, which began with the advent of ChatGPT and its very rapid adoption by the market, which has agitated and will continue to shake up the financial markets by attracting capital, innovation and talent. Even in Italy, it is now important to focus on technology to ensure the growth of our economic and productive fabric”, says Tommaso Maschera, director of Plug and Play Italy.
Generative artificial intelligence is subjecting our society to epochal changes at high speed, generating vast profit opportunities accompanied by socio-economic changes under construction.
The Summit explored concrete examples of artificial intelligence applications in different sectors: it did so with Spore.Bio, a startup that has developed a real-time microbiological quantification device for the agri-food sector; with Focoos AI, which illustrated the optimization of neural network architecture for on-edge applications; with Involve Space, which instead showcased a solution that supports and empowers the aerospace industry, offering automated management of operational processes and greater efficiency in operations.
“These examples demonstrate the vast potential of artificial intelligence in innovation and process optimization in sectors crucial to technological and industrial development,” adds Maschera.
Change and innovation
Marco Trombetti, CEO of Translated, with a keynote speech in which he recounted the history, growth and challenges of his company, founded 20 years ago with an initial investment of 100 euros, considered by the European Community one of the best research projects in the field of artificial intelligence in the last 7 years and among the most appreciated professional translation services, with over 330 thousand customers worldwide.
The first part of the event, focused on the theme “Embracing Change“, reviewed the solutions provided by new technologies such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing to some of the main global challenges such as international security and climate change, supporting the evolution of consumer needs. Speakers included Alessandro Cremonesi, CIO, ST Microelectronics, Robby Toole, CRO, QuantumBasel, Antonio Tavera, CEO & founder of Focoos AI, Tien Pham, chief scientist, Nato Diana, Stefano Molino, senior partner, CDP Venture Capital, Matilda Galluzzo, head of communication, Involve Space, Romualdo Annoni, business development, SOL Group, Palmo Antonio Cavallo, head of digital transition & data analytics, HERA Group, Amine Raji, co-founder & CEO and Louison Nallet, technical growth, Spore.Bio, Claudia Berti, head of global open innovation & IPR, Barilla and Matteo Cera, CEO & co-founder, Glaut.
The second part, “The Courage to Innovate“, explained how entrepreneurship and the world of investments are the key needed to face change with the contribution of Lorenzo Franzi, founding partner, Italian Founders Fund, Andrea Gennarini, co-founder & managing partner, 2100 Ventures, Diyala D’Aveni, head of investments & venture building, Vento, Marco Ogliengo, founder & CEO, Jet HR, Gianluca Cocco, founder & CEO, Qomodo, Sara Egidi, innovation & partnerships manager Tetra Pak, Thomas Bigagli, EMEA partner, Plug and Play Tech Center, Sebastiano Silvestri, corporate venture capital lead A2A and Leonardo Vegezzi, venture associate, Plug and Play Tech Center.
“Plug and Play’s activities in Italy are celebrating their fifth anniversary today. We are very proud of the path we have taken in Italy in these five years together with important corporate partners and institutions, starting with the launch in Milan on strategic verticals such as food & beverage, fintech and sustainability, and then moving on to the opening of the Motor Valley Accelerator in Modena in 2021, the Takeoff Accelerator in Turin in 2022 and the very recent DualTech by Takeoff program based in Turin. We strongly believe in Italy’s potential as an ecosystem capable of generating innovation of global relevance, and we are excited to continue to bring the culture of Silicon Valley to Italy, invest in the best startups and facilitate the growth of the ecosystem,” concludes Seena Amidi, managing partner EMEA at Plug and Play.
During the event, Plug and Play announced the launch of a new partnership with Hera Group, one of Italy’s largest multi-utilities operating in the environment, energy and water sectors, with around 10 thousand employees engaged every day in responding to the multiple needs of around 5 million citizens. Palmo Antonio Cavallo, Head of Digital Transition & Data Analytics, Hera Group, said: “This agreement, with a company that oversees the most important innovation hubs in the world, is important in order to find promising solutions in strategic areas for Hera’s business. In particular, in 2024 the topics covered by the partnership are related to major challenges for the multi-utility including the smart city, the circular economy and the management of water resources in the areas served. The scouting of start-ups and, in general, the continuous monitoring of innovation trends are in fact areas in which Plug and Play excels and the Hera Group is convinced that it can achieve important goals thanks to this collaboration”.
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