The first edition of Vento – Venture Originator with the support of Exor and in partnership with Talent Garden OGR Torino and Compagnia di San Paolo: the program will support 10 teams, for a total of 30 aspiring entrepreneurs, in the creation of scalable tech companies. After a four-month selection process, they begin a journey that will see them engaged until June in the development of a business idea. During this period, they will work inside the spaces of the Startup Village of OGR Tech in Turin and will be paid for their full-time commitment. Divided into 10 teams, they will have to respond to a challenge launched by large companies such as Reale Group, Reply, Telepass and UniCredit, with one goal: to find a solution that can be transformed into a business with high growth potential.
Hundreds of candidates have put their entrepreneurial skills to the test to be admitted to the program. After motivational, cognitive, psycho-aptitude tests, interviews, and a field test, 30 people were selected. The average age of the pioneers of this first edition of Vento is 28, but there are also those who are 45. Most of them are Italians, though some have participated from as far as Germany, Austria and the United States to spend the next few months in Turin. Their profiles are categorized into Biz Wiz (with a more business-oriented background) and Tech Nerd (experts in one or more technologies).
The challenges that the ten teams will have to face have been created by the representatives of the Partner Companies at the Talent Garden Fondazione Agnelli headquarters in Turin, in the presence of John Elkann (CEO of Exor), Davide Dattoli (Founder and Executive Chairman of Talent Garden), Massimo Lapucci (Secretary General of Fondazione CRT and CEO at OGR Torino), Carla Patrizia Ferrari (CFO of Compagnia di San Paolo), Pietro Campagna (Global Head Working Capital Solutions at UniCredit), Marco Milan (FinTech Innovation Specialist in Reale Group), Francesco Signoretti (Innovation Senior Advisor at Telepass), Paolo Capitelli (Director Communities of Practices at Reply), and Noam Ohana (Managing Director at Exor Seeds). The topics are varied and ambitious: making healthcare services more accessible, lowering the environmental impact of coding, harnessing satellite data for new commercial uses, leveraging the stock of small-to-medium businesses to increase access to credit. Other teams will work on simplifying residential rents, digitizing the customer experience for financial services and optimizing the deployment of artificial intelligence algorithms.
The program will be divided into three phases. The first phase will be dedicated to the in-depth analysis of the problem and will last for about two weeks. The second phase will focus on choosing the best solution and will last about six weeks. Finally, the last part of the program, which will last about eight weeks, will be dedicated to the implementation of the solution and preparation for the Investor Day, when each team will pitch their startup to a group of investors with the aim of raising seed capital.
The Investor Day is scheduled for June 13th, with investors from Italy, the rest of Europe and Silicon Valley. Teams will have an opportunity to receive a total of €250,000 in grants made available by the Compagnia di San Paolo to accelerate the growth of their new products or services in the market.
(Source: press release Vento Venture Originator)
