AGREEMENT BETWEEN DIGITAL MAGICS AND BACKTOWORK24 ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF STARTUPS AND OPEN INNOVATION PROGRAMS

AGREEMENT BETWEEN  DIGITAL MAGICS AND BACKTOWORK24  ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF STARTUPS AND OPEN INNOVATION PROGRAMS

Milan, May 16, 2017 – Digital Magics, business incubator listed on the AIM market of Italian Stock Exchange (symbol: DM), and BacktoWork24 – a company of Gruppo 24 ORE that provides integrated solutions aimed at facilitating the investment of financial resources and professional skills by managers and investors into small businesses and startups – have signed a partnership agreement for the joint development of innovative digital startups and Open Innovation programs for Italian companies.

BacktoWork24 will organise 4 meetings dedicated to Digital Magics’ startups: the first took place on May 10th in Milan, at the headquarters situated in Via Monte Rosa. During the Club Deal – the matchmaking event which brings together private investors, managers, executives and professionals  – Digital Magics presented its startups that are currently going through a funding phase to the important network of BacktoWork24.

Digital Magics and BacktoWork24 will also work together to formulate Open Innovation programs for Italian companies with the goal of creating open innovation, thereby improving processes, products and industrial services, thanks to innovations brought by startups and thanks to mutual networks of partners.

The BacktoWork24 manager-investors will also support young talents and young business starters by providing their professional expertise and by working closely with them and with the highly experienced team of Digital Magics.

With this operation, the biggest innovation platform for the development of DIGITAL MADE IN ITALY is further enhanced thanks to BacktoWork24. The platform has been launched by Digital Magics, Tamburi Investment Partners and Talent Garden to support the Italian digital startups, which represent a tremendous opportunity for Italy and for investors who believe in digital innovation.

Marco Gay, Executive Vice President of Digital Magics, said: “So far, more than 43 million EUR were raised for our startups, half of this sum invested by third parties, and we have developed more than 10 Open Innovation programs for Italian companies. The collaboration with BacktoWork24 and its network of investor-managers is an important support for the creation of an innovation system in the country, able to support our extraordinary talents on a financial and industrial level.”

Alberto Bassi, CEO of BacktoWork24: “After closing 2016 with over 45 investment transactions in small companies and startups, many of which are digital, we are convinced that this partnership will provide our managers-investors further key opportunities of great interest. We also believe that pooling the respective networks is the right way to generate a single, big hub of reference able to meet the needs of new entrepreneurial activities.”

This press release is online in the section Investors/Press Releases at www.digitalmagics.com

Digital Magics, listed on AIM Italia (symbol: DM), is an incubator of digital projects that provides consulting services and acceleration services to startups and enterprises, to facilitate the development of new technological businesses. Thanks to the partnership with Talent Garden and Tamburi Investment Partners, Digital Magics has created the most important national platform for innovation for DIGITAL MADE IN ITALY, by offering services for the digital transformation and “Open Innovation” to excellent enterprises, while providing support to innovative startups to create successful projects, from conception to IPO. The incubation and acceleration services offered by Digital Magics are active in the TAG co-working campuses present throughout Italy. Complementary services include investment activities, which have produced over the years a portfolio of 70 investments in startups, scaleups and digital spinoffs with high growth rates. Accelerated companies are flanked by Digital Magics LAB, a team of highly experienced business partners, and benefit not only from the large network of private and institutional investors that support them through “club deals”, but also from the many partner companies that support them on an industrial scale.

Integrae SIM acts as a Nomad and Specialist under the AIM Italia Issuers Regulations. For the storage and transfer of regulated information, Digital Magics makes use of the system of dissemination eMarket SDIR and the storage mechanism eMarket STORAGE available at the address www.emarketstorage.com  managed by Spafid Connect SpA.

BacktoWork24, a company founded by Carlo Bassi in 2012 and acquired in 2013 by Gruppo 24 ORE, is the first system in Italy that offers integrated solutions aimed at facilitating the investment of financial resources and professional skills by managers and investors into small businesses and startups. The goal is to create a virtuous circle able to promote the inflow of finance and know-how in innovative ways towards the real economy. The channels used range from events of Matching Deal and Club Deal to Open Innovation projects, from Equity Crowdfunding operations in collaboration with Equinvest, to Crowd Me Up with Radio 24, and others. With its activities, BacktoWork24 has promoted the cultural revolution that succeeds in creating a dialogue between two worlds that, up to now, have been distant from each other: the one of who is willing to capitalise on economic and intellectual resources, and the one of SMEs and startups with high potential willing to open up.

For further information:

Digital Magics – Press Office

Giorgio Bocchieri – Mail: giorgio.bocchieri@digitalmagics.com

Tel. 02 52505202 – Mob. 334 6853078

IR Top – Investor Relations

Floriana Vitale – Mail: f.vitale@irtop.com

Domenico Gentile – Mail: d.gentile@irtop.com

Tel. 02 45473884

Integrae SIM – Nomad

Mail: info@integraesim.it

Tel. 02 87208720

BacktoWork24

Edoardo Reggiani

Mail: edoardo.reggiani@ilsole24ore.com

Tel. 02.30224078 – Mob. 348.2217115