The ambition is to become the first incubator in Italy and attract talents and aspiring entrepreneurs from all over Europe. PoliHub, Innovation Park & Startup Accelerator of the Politecnico di Milano, is now home to a hundred innovative companies and is preparing to expand further.
Claudia Pingue has replaced the General Manager a few days ago Enrico Deluchi who, with Andrea Sianesi, president of PoliHub and of the Fondazione Politecnico di Milano, is implementing the strategy for the next six years: «We want to establish a greater focus on technological issues, on deep tech with intellectual properties. Focus on the technologies in which Politecnico specializes: from electronics, optoelectronics and photonics to the field of materials, from robotics to medtech up to mathematics and algorithms applied to AI ».
The new manager also specifies that PoliHub is not reserved for projects born within the laboratories of the Politecnico: "We want it to become the reference point for anyone who wants to do business on deep tech in Italy and then, why not, in Europe. Furthermore, the startups we incubate must have a strong social impact ».
The accelerator offers incubation programs to startups in different stages of maturity and boasts relationships with many of the major Italian companies, with which it historically operates open innovation programs and with the investor community, from venture capital to business angel. Support highly innovative startups through a scalable business model, working closely with large companies and with acceleration, mentorship and advisory programs.
In 2019 PoliHub was included in the Top 5 of the best university incubators in the world from the UBI Index ranking for the third consecutive time. In 2018, the 114 companies supported within its programs reached 31.7 million euros in aggregate turnover, received cumulative investments of 28 million and generated more than 650 new highly skilled jobs.
In the last five years PoliHub has evaluated more than 5,000 projects, selected and supported around 400 that have collected cumulatively more than 110 million euros and employed 1,200 employees and collaborators. Of these 400 projects, about 55% belongs to the Politecnico di Milano, while the rest comes from all over the country.
Giulia Cimpanelli
