Financial Times ranking: Unimi Foundation among the best European start-up incubators

Promoted by the University of Milan, Fondazione Unimi, an innovation hub supporting technology transfer and the incubation of innovative start-ups, has joined Europe's Leading Start-up hubs 2024. Fondazione Unimi is the gateway to the university's talent pool, drawing on the expertise of more than 3,000 researchers and technicians from 31 departments, connecting the academic world with the market. The European award was created with the aim of identifying the best European hubs for the acceleration and incubation of start-ups and is promoted by the Financial Times with the support of Statista and Sifted. Fondazione Unimi is thus among the best 125 institutions in this first edition of the ranking, selected from over 2,000 organisations from 34 different countries.

The main parameter for the evaluation of the innovation hubs, which weighed 85% of the final grade, was the judgement given by the recipients of the acceleration and incubation programmes in which they participated: for Fondazione Unimi, positive feedback was given by the participants in previous editions of the Seed4Innovation programme and the start-ups that took advantage of the incubation services. One of the activities promoted by Fondazione Unimi is Seed4Innovation, the scouting programme designed to accelerate the development of highly innovative solutions born from science-driven research and foster their industrial or market application, promoted in collaboration with the University of Milan and now in its fourth edition in 2024. More than 700 professors, researchers, students and graduates from the University and research partners have participated since 2020.

Numerous projects, including more than 20 patents, have been valorised thanks to the PoC (Proof of Concept, i.e. for the valorisation of patents) grants provided by the University of Milan (total value of EUR 1 million), industrial co-development contracts and investments by venture capital funds (total value of more than EUR 2.5 million). "The hard work and tenacity of the Unimi Foundation team, carried out in close cooperation with the university, have achieved a result that would have been impossible a few years ago. As president, I can only congratulate everyone on the impact created. While we celebrate this outstanding achievement, the Fondazione Unimi and Statale teams are already focused on the next challenges," commented Luca Solari, President of Fondazione Unimi.