The Incubator of Polytechnic of Turin has the goal of generating new knowledge intensive entrepreneurship. It benefits from the close relationship with the Polytechnic (university specialised in engineering and architecture studies) and its ability to catalyze, stimulate and support entrepreneurial initiatives. I3P addresses its activities to students, researchers, lecturers, entrepreneurs and companies willing to create a spin-off.
I3P offers entrepreneurs a complete path, starting from the definition of the business model and the business plan, to the tutoring of the company during its first years. I3P proposes itself as a partner of the entrepreneurial team, with the aim of maximizing the growth of the company through services provided both directly and through its partners. Each new company is assigned to a specialised tutor, who provides advice, training and contacts within the I3P network.
The activity of I3P is part of the global strategies of the Piedmont area aiming at supporting research, technological innovation and new entrepreneurship. The incubator has contributed to the growth of a regional ecosystem to support high-tech start-ups. The network is composed by highly specialized professionals, venture capitalists, banks, industrial partners, shareholders and stakeholders. In 2011, I3P has launched TreataBit, a preincubation program specifically designed to support the rapid growth of digital projects, for their majority aiming at the consumer market.
I3P works to help the creation of companies with scouting and awareness activities, generating every year around 500 ideas with 1000 candidates and 200 entrepreneurial projects. Around 30 companies are created of which a half are admitted in the incubation program. Since 1999, more than 230 companies have been created and admitted in I3P, of these more than 160 are still active and 24 have been acquired.
Image: Companies created
The total of active I3P’s companies is employing more than 2200 people, with an increase of about 250 people per year. In the last five years, the Incubator has collected an average of 3M € of equity per year for the start-ups that are in the incubation program.
Image: Startups accepted since 1999 and employees
Image: Economic investments
Furthermore, every year I3P is one of the organizers (with University of Turin, University of East Piedmont and Aosta Valley Region) of Start Cup Piemonte Valle d’Aosta, a business plan competition. This competition involves an ecosystem of 90.000 students, 3.000 professors, researchers and 2.000 PhDs every year.
I3P uses the methodology of learning-by-doing and the lessons it has learnt derive from the solution to problems the incubator had to face and solve during the years of its activity. Such as the creation of:
- A group of coaches able to support companies during their different phases.
- A methodology of scouting and a communication strategy to collect entrepreneurial ideas (Start Cup).
- A network of professionals able to solve different problems of the companies in specific matters (such as Law, HR, Administration, IP, etc).
- A network of BA and VC who are interested in investing in the start ups.
- A network of Banks interested in granting loans to companies.
The key success factors for the transfer are related to the capacity of the incubator of: having an impact on the ecosystem, being attractive and giving value to the companies. Furthermore, the constant search for growth and improvement of services is fundamental. An example of this is the creation of TreataBit’s support program, initially born to help the development and the growth of digital entrepreneurial projects.
Our incubator’s experience has been successfully shared in Italy, with:
- Basilicata Region – Here, in 2017, T3 Innovation was created. It is the regional tech-nology transfer structure, born from the implementation of the S3 under the 2014/2020 Basilicata ESFR Program. T3 is composed by a group of companies with consolidated expertise in the national and international scene: Pricewaterhouse-Coopers (PwC) Advisory, Noovle, I3P, Reti and Fleurs International.
- Calabria Region – Here, in 2018, the Start Cup Calabria was organized, which is a com-petition of innovative business ideas. The best ideas collected were selected to par-ticipate in a training and consulting week, with the support of I3P, together with PWC Advisory.
For Further information on I3P please see:
Contact Person is: Mario Vittone
e-mail: [email protected]
