Our country in the EU top 10 for ‘superstars’
(SAY) Rome, 16 June. – A new tool arrives in Europe, the European scaleup monitor, which allows you to monitor the performance of the EU startup market in real time, and in particular the evolution in scaleups. It is promoted by the European Scaleup Institute (Esi), made up of business schools from all over Europe including the Italian Luiss Business School. The new tool was presented during the second European Conference on scaleups promoted by Esi, which was held in recent days in Rome, hosted by the Luiss Business School and the Zest Hub.
THE ITALIAN NUMBERS – The European scaleup monitor classifies scaleups as companies that are less than 10 years old and with a turnover growth of 40% in at least 2 of the last 3 years. According to unpublished data released during the Conference at the Luiss Business School, there are currently 818 scaleups in Italy. The majority of Italian scaleups are located in Lombardy (218), followed by Lazio (116). The average of Italian scaleup companies in relation to all companies observed is 0.54%.
THE EUROPEAN COMPARISON – From the comparison with other European states, Italy’s absence in the top 10 countries in which there are more companies on the rise emerges. The Bel Paese, however, is in the top ten positions due to the presence of “superstar” companies, i.e. companies that are experiencing strong growth but, unlike scaleups, have been on the market for more than 10 years. For the rest, the monitor’s data shows that very small countries (i.e. Malta, Cyprus and Luxembourg) tend to be very high in the top ten of the states with the most companies scaling up but with very variable data over time, while the Nordic countries ( Finland, Denmark, Sweden) obtain high scores on various business growth metrics and maintain a rather stable performance over time. As regards specifically scaleups, which are among the youngest companies to scale up, the monitor shows that Poland, Lithuania, Romania and Latvia are the top 4 European countries for the presence of this type of company on their territory. THE SECTORS – With reference to the industries, the monitor records a large number of scaleups in the world of accommodation and the continuous rise of those in the ICT and research and development (R&D) sectors, already strong in Europe: the majority of scaleups and EU superstars belong to these sectors and play a vital role in driving innovation and digitalisation.
THE RESULTS FOR SINGLE ITALIAN REGION – As anticipated, in Italy the Region with the highest absolute number of scaleups belongs to Lombardy, which also has the highest number of ‘superstar’ companies (152). But the Region with the best share of scaleups (i.e. the percentage between scaleups and the sample of all companies observed) is Lazio. Compared to the national average, which sees 0.54% of the total companies in the scaleup phase, Lombardy and Lazio actually exceed this average with 0.60% scaleup and even 0.94% respectively. Percentage which settles at 0.62% and 0.42% respectively for superstar companies. Among the other Regions with a good number of scaleups we find Piedmont with 47 startups in the growth phase (0.46% of the total regional companies), Emilia Romagna with 49 scaleups (0.34%), Tuscany with 36 scaleups (0.32). Trentino Alto Adige closes the list with only 9 scaleups (0.25% of the total) but has the highest Superstar rate in Italy, with 24 ‘old’ companies in strong expansion, or 0.66% of the total .
THE REASONS FOR THE GAP AND THE RECIPES FOR GROWTH – “The data released in the second European Scaleup Conference – comments Christian Lechner, Associate Dean for Research of the Luiss Business School and member of the European scaleup institute – certify that despite the increased enthusiasm and attention towards scaleups, there is a fairly steady decline in the relative presence of all types of fast-growing businesses across Europe. This indicates that there is still a lot of work to do if we want the ‘Old Continent’ to truly become a competitive ecosystem for scaleups. Furthermore, the Italian gap in the growth of scaleups is certified and, even more so, in guaranteeing the context for the development of unicorn companies (companies that have reached a market valuation of more than one billion dollars, despite not being listed on the stock exchange; ed. ). The point is that there is a lot of talk about startups but almost no one – including the institutional world – deals with scaleups. And the risk, which must be avoided, is that the world of startups is promoted a lot, effectively causing potential scaleups to slip away and then become unicorns”. (Com/Red/ Dire) 04:09 16-06-24
