In Catanzaro the fourth Italian branch of Plug and Play

It will be dedicated to sustainability the fourth seat of Plug and Play in Italy.

After Turin, Milan and Modena the largest open innovation platform in the world, born in Silicon Valley and now present in 50 cities around the world, chooses to enhance a provincial city in the South, Catanzaro: “We hope to open before the end of this year and then have an official opening ceremony in 2024 – comments Borja Aznar-Bonilla, country manager for Italy and Switzerland -. We have a very strong partnership there with the open innovation incubator, accelerator and hub focused on environmental and social sustainability Entopan. The goal is replicate the Ogr model in Turin. But this is just the beginning: Italy has become one of the top 3-4 EMEA markets for usthe numbers speak for themselves, and we’re looking at other great opportunities across the country.”

Since 2019 Plug and Play has had a short but intense history in Italy: “We are following a double track of opportunity – continues Aznar-Bonilla -: on the one hand we have different programs linked to the pillars of the Italian economy such as MotorValley Accelerator in Modena for the automotive sector or Takeoff in Turin for the aerospace sector, or Food of course, and a series of upcoming opportunities in Southern Italy, in collaboration with the government or other entities to help the ecosystem in a given area. Italy is a very local economy but also a very global one, we are testing and testing the waters on new areas such as Smart Cities, Healthcare, Fashion… We are lucky that the Italian ecosystem has so many opportunities to offer us, and our strategy is not only to invest in Italian startups, but also to create the link between Italian companies and international startups from abroad”.

Launched in 2006 and co-founded by Saeed Amidi in the legendary Lucky Building in Silicon Valley which saw Google, PayPal and Dropbox take their first steps, today Plug and Play is present in more than 50 cities around the world and is configured as a platform for innovation with more than 550 large partner companies, over 68,000 startups in its proprietary database, and a total investment value of over 12 billion dollars in companies such as Dropbox, PayPal, N26 and Hippo.

In Italy, the offices (with related acceleration programs) are currently related to the Food & Beverage, Fintech, Sustainability, Automotive and Aerospace sectors.

In 2019 Plug&Play opened its first Italian office in Milan with an initial focus on the food & beverage sector (together with Esselunga, Tetra Pak and Barilla), and fintech (with UniCredit and Bper).

In 2021, the Modena office dedicated to the automotive sector was opened (together with Cdp Venture Capital, Crit, Fondazione Modena and UniCredit, Marelli and STMicroelectronics) with the launch of Motor Valley Accelerator. In 2022 the Turin office dedicated to aerospace and advanced hardware opens, Takeoff Accelerator, an initiative of Cdp Venture Capital, promoted by the co-investors of the UniCredit program and Fondazione Crt, Ogr Turin as innovation and networking partner, Leonardo and Avio, European Space Agency and Italian Space Agency as members of the scientific committee.

The Plug and Play model provides, even in our country, a co-investment structure shared in various programs: “Within all our Italian realities we are trying to make a few million euros in co-investments (this number can be between 2 and 3 million investments, ed) – concludes the country manager -. Now due to the inflation we are experiencing globally and given the recent banking scandal news this year we will probably be more cautious. We believe that the valuation of certain startups or projects has ballooned and money has become more challenging to channel into projects. Having said that, we still have a proven track record of successful investments and this year we are at over 247 investments globally (40 of them in Europe), so for Italy I expect between 20 and 30 investments by 2023″.