This is Italy Panorama.it blog – March 16, 2015
http://www.thisisitaly-panorama.com/investment-news/an-italian-us-partnership-to-support-start-ups/
An Italian-US partnership to support start-ups
How Los Angeles Venture Association, ICE and Digital Magics help Italian companies abroad
by Claudia Astarita
A few weeks ago, start-ups addicted met in Los Angeles to attend Italia Restarts Up, a two-day event held organized to raise the attention of foreign investors to Italian start-ups and local innovative ecosystems. The event has been organized by ICE, the Italian Trade Promotion Agency, to encourage and support the internationalization of research and promote innovative companies. The Los Angeles gathering is the second event connected to the Italian Restarts Up project. The first one was held in Milan on December 9th and 10th, offering a stimulating matchmaking platform for start-up companies and Italian investors on the one hand, and foreign investors on the other. Los Angeles has been chosen as the second best location to further stretch the borders of the initiatives because of ICE’s decision to set up three new innovation desks at its offices in Hong Kong, Mumbai, and Los Angeles. The American gathering proved particularly successful, as it led to the creation of a new partnership among Los Angeles Venture Association (LAVA, an US-based association specialized in providing forums where entrepreneurs and executives of start-up, emerging growth and late stage venture funded companies actively meet and learn from fellow executives, investors, bankers, financial advisors and other providers of professional services), ICE, and Digital Magics, the Italian venture incubator of innovative start-ups and digitalscaleups. With this new partnership, all entities aim to promote and develop funding for Italian innovative start-ups by major US institutional investors. Leonard Lanzi, Executive Director of LAVA, described the agreement as a tool to confirm their strong commitment to promote the “globalization of start-upsâ€, highlighting that “Italy has always been a centre of innovation and its strong start-up community is noteworthyâ€. For Gabriele Gresta, a co-Founder and Board Member of Digital Magics, the new partnership should be considered a further step for the promotion on “digital Made in Italy†in the world, welcoming it as “the first of a long series of initiatives aimed to further†strengthen the presence of Italian start-ups abroad.
