{"id":31812,"date":"2025-05-22T18:13:22","date_gmt":"2025-05-22T16:13:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.azzurrodigitale.com\/startups-and-industry-why-the-match-is-still-difficult-in-italy\/"},"modified":"2025-05-29T15:23:33","modified_gmt":"2025-05-29T13:23:33","slug":"startups-and-industry-why-the-match-is-still-difficult-in-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azzurrodigitale.com\/en\/startups-and-industry-why-the-match-is-still-difficult-in-italy\/","title":{"rendered":"Startups and Industry: Why the Match is Still Difficult in Italy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">An article by Jacopo Pertile &#8211; Co-Founder and CEO of AzzurroDigitale<\/h3>\n\n<p>Why is it so <strong>difficult to<\/strong> <strong>get B2B tech startups<\/strong> off the ground in the Italian industrial sector?<\/p>\n\n<p>It is a question that came back forcefully during a discussion at the <strong>SMACT Competence Center<\/strong> with some of the most authoritative names in the industrial and innovation sector.<\/p>\n\n<p>Italy is the second manufacturing power in Europe, yet <strong>the percentage of active collaborations between industrial corporations and startups is very low<\/strong>. In a world that is racing towards automation, AI and sustainability, we are gambling our future. <\/p>\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n<p>Why does this happen? Here are some of the obstacles we highlighted in the roundtable: <\/p>\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Little propensity for risk by management <\/strong>both from a cultural point of view and from company directives. Often if the project is started with a big tech and fails, everyone is responsible. If instead you rely on a startup and it doesn&#8217;t work out, it&#8217;s usually the manager&#8217;s fault. The perceived risk is personal, not corporate.   <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Non-distributed R&amp;D<\/strong>: often there is an ad hoc department that centralizes the entire decision-making process leading to obvious bottlenecks and over complexity.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The negative narrative about startups<\/strong>: \u201cthey won\u2019t last 24 months\u201d, \u201cthey are poorly structured\u201d, \u201cthey are not solid\u201d. Statistically, many of them fail, that\u2019s certainly true. But that\u2019s no excuse for not trying.  <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Decision-making processes in companies are slow<\/strong>, tied to predefined annual budgets and legal constraints far from the production reality. This leads to a very long sales cycle (12\/24 months) which leads startups to need a lot of cash behind them to support themselves with all the complexities of the case. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Lack of tax incentives<\/strong> to experiment with new \u201cmade in EU\u201d technologies in the industrial sector (when will a real 5.0 plan start up again, perhaps on a European scale?).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n<p>Some <strong>proposals<\/strong> that have emerged:<\/p>\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Autonomous budgets and spending obligations<\/strong> for managers to experiment with startup solutions, as part of corporate objectives. Even better if they are tied to the European territory. This is not a question of provincialism, but for the need to grow the ecosystem. With great urgency.   <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Full tax exemption for investments<\/strong> in projects carried out by Italian deep tech startups.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Fast track processes for MVPs<\/strong>, with approvals in less than 30 days that go beyond normal company procedures. The logic must be: first we see if the technology brings value and then we \u201ccage\u201d it in the right purchasing and legal processes. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Educating and empowering industry<\/strong> leadership on the value of calculated risk.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In cases of M&amp;A aimed at industrial operations that strengthen our manufacturing companies, the <strong>possibility of fiscally recovering the total investment<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n<p>Industrial innovation is not an option for our territory and our Europe. It is a necessity. We need a new pact between startups and industry.  <\/p>\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An article by Jacopo Pertile &#8211; Co-Founder and CEO of AzzurroDigitale Why is it so difficult to get B2B tech startups off the ground in the Italian industrial sector? It is a question that came back forcefully during a discussion at the SMACT Competence Center with some of the most authoritative names in the industrial [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31789,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-digital-transformation-en"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Startups and Industry: Why the Match is Still Difficult in Italy - AzzurroDigitale<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azzurrodigitale.com\/en\/startups-and-industry-why-the-match-is-still-difficult-in-italy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Startups and Industry: Why the Match is Still Difficult in Italy - AzzurroDigitale\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An article by Jacopo Pertile &#8211; Co-Founder and CEO of AzzurroDigitale Why is it so difficult to get B2B tech startups off the ground in the Italian industrial sector? It is a question that came back forcefully during a discussion at the SMACT Competence Center with some of the most authoritative names in the industrial [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.azzurrodigitale.com\/en\/startups-and-industry-why-the-match-is-still-difficult-in-italy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"AzzurroDigitale\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/azzurrodigitale\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-05-22T16:13:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-05-29T13:23:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.azzurrodigitale.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Innovazione-e-Venture-Capital-1-1-scaled.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1707\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sofia Cominato\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sofia Cominato\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Startups and Industry: Why the Match is Still Difficult in Italy - AzzurroDigitale","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.azzurrodigitale.com\/en\/startups-and-industry-why-the-match-is-still-difficult-in-italy\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Startups and Industry: Why the Match is Still Difficult in Italy - AzzurroDigitale","og_description":"An article by Jacopo Pertile &#8211; Co-Founder and CEO of AzzurroDigitale Why is it so difficult to get B2B tech startups off the ground in the Italian industrial sector? It is a question that came back forcefully during a discussion at the SMACT Competence Center with some of the most authoritative names in the industrial [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.azzurrodigitale.com\/en\/startups-and-industry-why-the-match-is-still-difficult-in-italy\/","og_site_name":"AzzurroDigitale","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/azzurrodigitale","article_published_time":"2025-05-22T16:13:22+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-05-29T13:23:33+00:00","og_image":[{"width":2560,"height":1707,"url":"https:\/\/www.azzurrodigitale.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Innovazione-e-Venture-Capital-1-1-scaled.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Sofia Cominato","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Sofia Cominato","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.azzurrodigitale.com\/en\/startups-and-industry-why-the-match-is-still-difficult-in-italy\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.azzurrodigitale.com\/en\/startups-and-industry-why-the-match-is-still-difficult-in-italy\/"},"author":{"name":"Sofia Cominato","@id":"https:\/\/www.azzurrodigitale.com\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/4d2d52ca7760d6f0ae9fe66dfc94a78c"},"headline":"Startups and Industry: Why the Match is Still Difficult in Italy","datePublished":"2025-05-22T16:13:22+00:00","dateModified":"2025-05-29T13:23:33+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.azzurrodigitale.com\/en\/startups-and-industry-why-the-match-is-still-difficult-in-italy\/"},"wordCount":483,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.azzurrodigitale.com\/en\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.azzurrodigitale.com\/en\/startups-and-industry-why-the-match-is-still-difficult-in-italy\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.azzurrodigitale.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Innovazione-e-Venture-Capital-1-1-scaled.png","articleSection":["Digital Transformation"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.azzurrodigitale.com\/en\/startups-and-industry-why-the-match-is-still-difficult-in-italy\/","url":"https:\/\/www.azzurrodigitale.com\/en\/startups-and-industry-why-the-match-is-still-difficult-in-italy\/","name":"Startups and Industry: Why the Match is Still Difficult in Italy - 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