Enrico Cattaneo

Managing Partner

Aerospace Engineer with a PhD in Management & Economics and an MBA from ESCP Europe in Paris, he has been working for over 20 years as a lecturer and consultant on corporate innovation issues. He is Managing Partner of The Doers, a company of Digital Magics, which deals with Corporate Innovation in its different aspects: Corporate Intrapreneurship, Corporate Venturing and Customer Discovery.

We asked Enrico Cattaneo, Managing Partner of The Doers and Head of ToTeM, to help us sum up our first in-person events, at Talent Garden Fondazione Agnelli in November and December and at CTE Next this week.

Tribe by ToTeM is the Torino Tech Map event designed to allow Turin's innovation tribe to meet, get to know each other and compare notes. The event is powered by The Doers in partnership with Turin Chamber of Commerce, Comitato Torino Finanza, Club degli Investitori, Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, Fondazione Sviluppo e Crescita CRT.

Is it already possible to draw a balance after the first Tribe by ToTeM events?

We are only at the third Tribe by ToTeM event, so it is not possible to draw up a balance sheet, but only an initial progress report on this new initiative.

The figures show that in three events we have recorded:

• more than 500 event registrations, 400 of which were unique and 100 recurring
• 250 participants, with an average of around 80 per event
• of the total 25% startups, 15% investors and 10% corporates
• representatives of all other categories of players in the innovation ecosystem, from public bodies to students and research institutes.

From this initial data it therefore seems that there is an interest, on the part of the main categories of players supporting the growth of the startup ecosystem, to participate in physical events to listen to peer experiences (startups vs. startups), understand the logic of investment and introduce themselves to investors and corporates (startups vs. funds and startups vs. corporates) and exchange ideas and get to know each other during networking moments (everyone with everyone).

Why do you think the ecosystem needs events like this?

At the first Tribe by ToTeM meeting it was Startup Genome's Global Startup Ecosystem Report, a Silicon Valley company expert in ecosystem evaluation, who told us that one of the key ingredients for the growth of an early-stage ecosystem is 'local connection', which is also the current mission of our events and the data seems to confirm this. Local connection and fluidification events between the players in the ecosystem are highly appreciated because they are useful and concrete. After the phase of awareness and inspiration, of talks and speeches by great experts, there is a need to put things into practice and to do this you really need to understand how to do it, where to go wrong, who can help and at these events you get concrete answers from people in the industry.

So, do startups come to learn something?

Failure of innovative ideas is the order of the day, in fact it is much more likely than success. The first objective of start-ups and innovators is, therefore, to reduce the risk of their initiatives, which does not mean not taking risks but exactly the opposite: to minimize the risks and impact of the mistakes that will inevitably occur. This risk-reduction activity also involves comparison with other startups that are travelling along the same path, with companies that have already been successful (scale-ups) and with investors who have a complete vision. And, of course, startups also come to meet investors and companies to collaborate with.

Going back to the ecosystem, is the one in Turin really that "early stage"?

When Ethan Webster of Startup Genome candidly stated last November that Turin's ecosystem is at a low level of maturity, there was obvious opposition in the room, as if to say "how can Turin, the capital of many innovations, engaged for years in initiatives of great technological interest and home to one of the most important university incubators in Italy, be an immature ecosystem?" Ethan went on to explain that, unlike human beings, ecosystems do not mature with the passing of years, but thanks to the number of startups that are born, grow and succeed in a given territory, creating a virtuous circle of birth and continuous growth of new realities, attraction of investments and increase of serial entrepreneurs. All ingredients that are still scarce in Turin.

But, regardless of the studies, what is the perception of startups?

In these first three events of Tribe by ToTeM, we have involved as speakers ten startups at different stages of maturity, from those just coming out of acceleration programmes such as Gymnasio and Eoliann to those that are preparing multi-million dollar rounds to expand into international markets such as Enerbrain and Planet Smart City, and they all gave the same answer: Turin is finally changing speed, finally something is really happening.

What is moving?

There are many components and some are closely related. Turin has been the first and only Italian city to host a Techstars accelerator programme from 2020. Techstars is a pioneer in this field, founded in 2006 in Boulder, Colorado and today one of the largest funds in the world, with a portfolio of more than 2,600 startups that have reached a total market capitalisation of over $63 billion. As a result of this, thanks also to the significant investments of CDP Venture Capital's Accelerators Fund throughout the country, many other accelerators have sprung up in Turin, so much so that in 2022 alone there will be more than ten in OGR Tech. The birth of OGR Tech is a demonstration of the development of the ecosystem that has found a reference centre in which to work and meet for events of national and international scope, such as Italian Tech Week, to name but one. Also in the banking sector, the Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo and Banca Intesa Sanpaolo funds have given an acceleration to investments in startups, in addition to the development of the Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center in the Corso Inghilterra skyscraper. Last but not least, the very significant increase in 2022 of investments made by local business angels and venture capitalists: considering only the del territorio: considerando solo il Club degli Investitori and LIFTT more than €35 million were invested in over 50 innovative companies. If we compare this partial and certainly not exhaustive picture with the situation in Turin three years ago, the acceleration is evident. An acceleration that can surely be measured shortly as an increase in the maturity of our ecosystem.