By Giulia D'Amato and Alessio Boceda | founders of Startup Geeks
2022 was the year of startups according to data from the MISE: 14,708 companies, the highest number ever and a growth in investment of +68 percent for a total of more 2.3 billion euros. But 2022 was also the year of layoffs in Silicon Valley's big tech companies, which after the exponential growth they had during the pandemic and massive hiring had to backtrack and cut back on staffing. And if it is true that Italy always comes a few years later than the United States, are these layoffs foreshadowing a situation that will also involve the Italian system? The layoffs that have occurred in big tech are an important element for the future of the startup ecosystem in general. Out of those offices now are skilled professionals who have learned the processes and absorbed the mindset of the most successful companies, and this will serve them well in bringing a viable business project to market. What may seem like a step backward in the entrepreneurial system could instead be the turning point for bringing new unicorns to market.
The value of Benefit Societies: creating knowledge, expertise and jobs
By 2023, therefore, we can think positive. In our country, the number of applications to set up Benefit Societies is also growing, that is, companies with a legal form that fits in among for-profit social arrangements but instead of having the interests of members and shareholders alone and only at heart, also places its attention toward the interests of the community and the environment. In fact, according to the most recent data from Assobenefit as of June 2022 , the number of Benefit Societies in Italy has exceeded two thousand: a number that has more than doubled over the past year, given that in 2021 there were about 926. A scenario that sees startups also doing free training and creating skills and consequently employment and new businesses in a training system that certainly needs to be renewed.
Innovation as corporate welfare
Italian Benefit Societies also include Startup Geeks, an online startup incubator, which works every day to create awareness around entrepreneurship issues, generating positive impact for the community through various channels and solutions. Can teaching innovation be a corporate welfare initiative? There was a positive response when Startup Geeks opened its incubation program to large companies as well. The goal was to provide one more tool for all those companies that wanted to train their employees on the topics of innovation and entrepreneurship. In its first year of operation, Startup Geeks Innovation worked with several companies, including NTT Data, Italdesign, ENI, ELIS, Sisal, and Credem. After incubating nearly 700 business projects, the idea was to coin a training course that could help managers develop knowledge and skills useful for bringing innovation into their work reality, acquiring a leading role in defining the company's innovation strategy. An initiative that follows the growing trend of so-called "corporate intrapreneurship," which is precisely the practice of transmitting entrepreneurial and innovation skills in companies.
What are we going to do in 2023?
The data show us that the European ecosystem is also full of potential entrepreneurs who as of today do not have the tools to launch their business idea in an informed and planned way. We want to replicate the work we are doing in Italy by developing our online incubator abroad as well, so that we can give people who do not live in large European cities the chance to develop their own project as well. The very events of the last few months lead us to think that this is the right time to do it.
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