Dario Calogero

Last weekend, I dove deep into a topic close to my heart—Europe’s innovation landscape—sparked by an insightful report (Future of European Competitiveness Report by Former Prime Minister of Italy, Mario Draghi - link: https://lnkd.in/g3xMiJD9) I first heard about thanks to Owen Reynolds. (Thank you, Owen, for making me aware of it). The result? An article where I weave my entrepreneurial lens with Peter Wollmann’s “Three Pillar Framework,” a model I now find myself addicted to thinking with. In this piece, I explore Europe’s innovation dilemma: a continent rich in ideas yet challenged in scaling them. My article unpacks why Europe’s legacy of ingenuity must now be matched with bold risk-taking and systemic transformation. From fragmented markets to risk-averse venture capital, the challenges are significant—but so are the opportunities. From fragmented markets to risk-averse venture capital, the challenges are significant, but so are the opportunities. As an immigrant, American, and former founder, I care deeply about Europe’s future because I believe a strong, innovative Europe benefits the entire world. Tackling global challenges—from climate change to digital equity—requires a uniquely European approach, one that doesn’t imitate the American or Chinese models but instead builds on Europe’s own values and strengths. 📖 Who should read this? Anyone who cares about Europe’s future. Founders, policymakers, investors, and global citizens. #EuropeanInnovation #InnovationProblem #AITransformation #CompetitivenessReport https://lnkd.in/g4bvA3FE

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Excited to join this amazing lineup of speakers tomorrow at the Talk & Cocktail on Alternative Finance! Looking forward to insightful discussions on the latest trends and innovations. See you there! #alternativefinance #fintech #innovation

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One of the most interesting ideas emerging recently is e/acc, effective accelerationism. I'll have a live conversation about it with Giulio Prisco on May 7 at 3pm CET (in Italian). Join us! https://lnkd.in/dVe8KfUy Giulio Prisco is a renowned futurist, cosmist and advocate of effective accelerationism (e/acc). Discover the interesting intersection between technology, philosophy and the future in this in-depth study of the concepts and principles of e/acc. From great cosmist aspirations to the practical applications of accelerating progress, this conversation is a stimulating exploration of human potential and the role of technology in shaping our future. Don't miss this unique opportunity to learn from one of the brightest minds in the field of Futurist thinking. Can you briefly explain the fundamental principles of effective accelerationism (e/acc) and how it differs from other Futurist philosophies? How do you see e/acc as a continuation or evolution of the ideas of cosmism and extropia? In your opinion, what are the most significant challenges facing humanity today, and how can e/acc help solve these challenges? Can you delve deeper into the concept of "out-of-balance thermodynamics" and its relevance to the objectives of e/acc? What is the role you see for artificial intelligence in movement and/acc, and how do you imagine the development and integration of AI with human society? How do you respond to criticism that e/acc could lead to greater inequality or loss of control over technologies? What is your vision for the future of humanity and the universe in the context of e/acc? How do you see the relationship between e/acc and other emerging technologies, such as space exploration, biotechnology and nanotechnology? How can people and society help achieve e/acc goals and accelerate progress towards a better future? What are your thoughts on the ethical considerations surrounding e/acc, and how can we ensure that technology is used responsibly and for the good of all?

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Four years ago when Camilla and I launched Made IT Podcast, we were driven by a mission: to inspire the next generation of Italian entrepreneurs and innovators. How where we going to achieve this? We decided to interview the most brilliant Italian founders and break down the steps it took to build their companies, from making the decision to quit their full-time jobs to facing and overcoming the toughest obstacles. Our mission remains the same, but we realized that to truly grow the Italian startup ecosystem, we needed to expand our reach beyond borders 🇮🇹 Recognizing that no international news outlet consistently covers Italian tech in-depth, we felt compelled to act. Enter Amy O'Brien, a passionate journalist who has been reporting on Italian tech for years. Together, we created Il Digestivo, the most comprehensive monthly newsletter on the Italian new economy. Every month, we bring you the latest news, exclusive scoops, insightful interviews, and so much more. Stay ahead of the curve with the latest innovations from Italy. Subscribe to our newsletter – it's free, but you can also choose to donate if you want support independent journalism. The second edition comes out tomorrow. Don’t miss it 👇🏼 https://lnkd.in/epYwy5Bd

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I had the opportunity to chat to a successful entrepreneur in the US that has now moved to Italy. I was very impressed by what he said! The real enabler of a startup ecosystem in #TRUST. Trust brings #SPEED and speed is everything to win in the startup growth process. This means that: - term sheets are one page long, not twenty - contracts between large corporates and startups happen in weeks not months (or years) - people get hired and fired quickly - capital flows through easily I want to think that we can overcome our stupidity in Europe, we have built empires thousands of years ago but seem far away from being at the forefront of space, energy, technology innovation. And to win we need to change things today. I am not going to blame governments, politicians, corporates, VCs. I am going to build something and believe that if I can change this ever so slightly, it is going to be HUGE. I think I found my new problem. #startup #stealth #founder #technology

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Time is more relevant than money. Mentioned Andrea Di Camillo, Founding Partner at P101. Building a leading tech company involves many moving parts: 👉 developing products 👉 adapting to markets 👉 scaling internationally 👉 establishing governance This doesn’t happen overnight. Italy might not be the next Silicon Valley just yet. BUT, with the right direction and time, the future looks bright. Tune in for the full story on EUVC & your favorite streaming platforms. 🎧 https://lnkd.in/dXSsg2fd #EUVCpodcast #venturecapital #angelinvesting #startupfunding #europe

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Good news: More seed and early stage capital for Startup Italy Milan, Italy-based MITO Technology has announced the first close of its second fund, at €55m, which will focus on climate hardware and scientist founders. The European Investment Fund (EIF) and CDP Venture Capital SGR are among its LPs, together with one of the main Italian multi-utilities (Iren Luce Gas e Servizi).  It plans to make 25 investments into companies working on reducing carbon dioxide emissions in the energy, construction, mobility and heavy industry sectors. The fund has a target size of €90m and a hard cap of €120m.   The fund is the first Italian VC fund classified as an Article 9 fund under the EU’s sustainable finance disclosure regulation.  Extra kudos to the team (since I know that the fundraising took a while): Francesco De Michelis Andrea Basso, Alberto Calvo, Michele Costabile, Massimiliano Granieri, Leonardo Massa e Valentina Sesti The news has also been reported by Sifted meaning that the progress of Startup Italy is not getting unnoticed. Luca Dal Fabbro Enrico Pochettino Agostino SCORNAJENCHI Mind the Bridge

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The beauty in Innovation is its capability to bridge different cultures, geographic regions and business sectors, it creates a universal common ground, something relevant to everyone, making people feel better, creates opportunities and acting as the fabric on which we can all collaborate to create a better future; or as we call it, a global innovation ecosystem. Big thanks to StartupItalia and Chiara Buratti for the opportunity to share the power and possibilities of human innovation. Link to the article: https://lnkd.in/degwUhpT

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Energy efficiency, the 1-10-100Bn game, and why LLMs are hitting the cap... so, what's next? That is an interesting article, and I'm into it 100%. We met a few days ago, Naila Murray, at a private AI meetup at Binario F from Facebook in Rome, and we touched upon this topic. So many things are moving! https://lnkd.in/dycb3x4p

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Lorenzo Franzi and the Italian Founders Fund. Congratulations! <3 This week, Lorenzo and his team launched the Italian Founders Fund. They brought together over 100 founders and entrepreneurs, pooling €50M to support the next generation. It’s a big deal for Italian entrepreneurship. He has watched the Italian market with Global Founders Capital for three years. He has seen tremendous progress, met many talented people, and met ambitious new founders. Now, they're building the next wave of tech companies and putting Italy on the venture capital map. The pay-it-forward model—where experienced founders help the new generation—has worked in many places. Lorenzo and his team are making it happen in Italy with the Italian Founders Fund. They’re looking to work with angels and local investors. They're also excited about the growing interest from international investors. Their goal? Support Italian founders abroad and welcome foreign ventures to Italy. #ItalianFoundersFund #VC #Tech #Entrepreneurship #Italy #Innovation

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💥 Yesterday we announced a significant milestone with the launch of the Italian Founders Fund. We've gathered a community of over 100 founders and entrepreneurs who have come together to support the next generation of founders with a €50m fund. It's really exciting to see how much support there is for the next generation. Since I started to cover the 🇮🇹 Italian market with Global Founders Capital 3 years ago, I've witnessed so much development.I've met many talented individuals and ambitious new founders who are building the next generation of tech companies, and Italians across the VC landscape (Italians in VC). The pay-it-forward model from experienced founders towards the new generation has been essential in many ecosystems, and we aim to deliver it in Italy with significant impact. Founders are at the heart of what we're building in IFF. We look forward to collaborating with many angels, local investors and supporting the increasing interest from foreign investors. We also aim to support Italian founders abroad and foreign ventures looking to enter the Italian market. More details on our website and press in comments below. Italian Founders Fund Ascanio Orombelli Alessandra Santi Sonia Maciuszewicz Giorgio Valaguzza Davide Dattoli Zhang Andrea Colombo Matteo de Brabant Francesco Fumagalli Koinos Capital SGR Paolo De Nadai

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The Italian Deputy Minister Valentino Valentini led the 5th Digital for SMEs Roundtable focused on AI's impact on SMEs #D4SME co-organized by OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions & Cities and Business at OECD (BIAC) He opened the floor recalling "The Bologna Charter on SME Policies" adopted in 2000 during the Bologna Conference for Ministers Responsible for SMEs and Industry. The declaration recognizes the importance of SMEs and their contribution to economic growth, social cohesion, employment, regional development and set actions to foster SME development, in areas such as the business environment, access to finance, innovation, and public private partnership. The declaration also welcomed the Italian proposal for INSME - The International Network for Small and Medium Enterprises which has been then established in 2004 following the Ministerial Conference on SMEs convened in Istanbul. This year we will celebrate its 20th anniversary in Rome on the 14th October 2024, you can't miss it!   Some interesting insights emerged during the roundtable: 👍 digitalization helps SMEs to increase sales, to reach new customers, to boost productivity, and to make better decisions 👎 but important bottlenecks still hinder digitalization, such as the lack of time for training, hardware and maintenance costs and talent and skills.    Speaking of competencies, not only do SMEs lack the digital technical skills, but also how to seize opportunities offered by digitalization and transform them into value for customers. Government support and a closer co-operation between governments, large service providers, SMEs and entrepreneurs is essential to ensure the digital transformation of SMEs ... 𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐌𝐄 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬!   Keep up the good work 🙌 Marco Bianchini Martin Godel Lucia Cusmano Raffaele Trapasso Lamia Kamal-Chaoui Giulia Ajmone Marsan Dr. Patrik Kovacs Giorgia Ponti Rachel Dignam Paolo Casalino Emma Jones Ermanno Gigante Ana Costa Paula Cesare Riillo Miriam Koreen David Halabisky Marco Marchese Alexander Lembcke Helmut Kraemer-Eis, Dr. Anastasia Aniwa Katrin Sturm Ayman El Tarabishy Clare Sarson Jonathan Potter Angelina Cannizzaro Dragan Radic Michele Orzan William Polushin Alban Maggiar Aurora Candel Claire Ehmann

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What are the Best International Startup Accelerators Outside of Italy? Beyond NAStartUp? Check out my post here https://lnkd.in/dJVURyrZ with all the links to the official websites ;) #startups #accelerators #tips #killermedia

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A few weeks ago I pitched my new company for the first time. We received amazing feedback on the pitch (both in person and under Vento's video here on LinkedIn - thanks!), but before getting into what’s next, let me tell you how I got to pitch in front of hundreds of amazing investors a 3 minutes pitch that I loved. It’s quite simple, actually. I went through 13 versions of the pitch in 1 month. Condensing months worth of work and aspirations for the next decades in 3 minutes is absolutely not an easy task. You want it to be simple, but you also want to convey the message that a lot of work went into your venture so far, and a lot more will be needed to reach future milestones. The first version of my pitch was a Notion page with the most basic questions you should be able to answer: here’s what we do, here’s why it’s hard, here’s why it’s needed, here are the people who will need it, here’s why we’re the ones to build it, here’s how it works, here’s how big the market can be. The smartest thing my co-founder and I have done is building a data room early on: context, articles, explanations of the problem, users interview, info about ourselves, financials, and much more in a single place. This made it incredibly easy to package straight to the point answers to those questions (Notion Q&A, thank you for saving my life). After pitching my Notion page to a couple of investors, I understood what points needed extra information to de-risk the deal for investors, and what points were almost trivial and didn’t need an explanation. 13 iterations later, an infinte number of toggles, callouts, AI support in making the pitch shorter, simpler, bolder, and we got to the version we pitched last month. If you are in the process right now, trust me: write down everything you’ve collected so far in a digestible way, ask yourself those questions, pitch to everyone you know and continuously iterate. And keep track of every version! Something tells me those comments will never cease to be useful 🙂 I if you're an entrepreneur looking for a tool to replicate the process use my link to get 6 months for free + unlimited AI (value worth up to 6,000$) with Notion! Submit an application using my custom link: https://lnkd.in/d-JtWdJU and select Michela Andreolli on the partner list. Don't forget to Include my key: STARTUP4110P54770.

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#Tourism is a natural playground for #generative #AI over the entire travel journey. Therefore, Italian companies should be ready to take advantage of the new opportunities. For this reason, I was particularly glad to accept the invitation by the OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions & Cities to give a speech at the very well-crafted workshop organized in Rome at ENIT S.p.A. on the #digitalisation of the tourism ecosystem in 🇮🇹, an important milestone in the project carried out by the OECD with the Italian Ministry of Tourism and the European Commission (DG Reform). These are the main points I conveyed to my fellow panelists and the audience: 📌 on average, firms in tourism look more digitally mature than companies in other sectors, and Italian firms even more than their EU counterparts. However, these firms are generally lagging behind in the adoption of more sophisticated digital technologies such as #AI 📌 AI and especially generative AI are actually a huge potential for the tourism sector, providing assistance to #customers all along their trip. Generative AI has also the capacity to empower #smaller #companies helping them to balance their lack of manpower 📌 #skills adequacy, especially for #SMEs, is a major challenge, as well as #data #privacy and #security and #compliance #costs generated by regulation. This could reflect upon adoption, especially for SMEs 📌 EU policies and national strategies should prioritize #AI #adoption by SMEs, starting from raising #awareness of the top brass Kudos to Marco Bianchini Peter Haxton (PhD) Hannes Thees for the wonderful moderation and organization and Maria Rosaria Della Porta for the valuable contribution to my presentation!

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It feels like almost a year and indeed it was January '24 when Giovanni Paratore and I shared some of our thoughts via VC Unpacked. Here we are soooo back with an end-of-year gift 🚀 After a turbulent year made of a lot of data-cleaning activities, we're back with one of the first articles we'll share about VC performances against several variables 📊 In the current issues, we're digging deep into one of the most talked about and controversial topics of the year: Fund Size. What are the best-performing sizes? What are the implications of the rise of Multi-Stage firms? Have a look and let us know what you think! #venturecapital #vc #fundsize #fundraising

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Federico Cristoforoni and his team really impressed me with this latest report. 🌍 The 2024 State of Climate Tech! Over 130 pages of actionable insights. What’s Inside? 📊 Global Climate Tech Funding Trends: An in-depth analysis of 43K+ deals, 16K+ organizations, and private venture market trends, broken down by: • Regions 🌎 • Stages 🚀 • Funding instruments 💰 • Product categories 🌱 🗣 The Voice of the Ecosystem: Findings from 300+ survey responses from innovators, investors, corporations, and other key players shaping Climate Tech. This report is designed to empower Climate Tech innovators, investors, and ecosystem players with transparency and clarity. 💬 What’s your take? Which trends will define Climate Tech in 2025?

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Immigration in Italy vs EU 🔍 In the last #episode of Finanza, pizza e mandolino, Francesco Rassu and I discussed a very interesting infographic by Eurostat on #new #citizens in Italy, Germany, Spain, France, and the UK over 2022-2023 📊 Two metrics, in particular, left us quite surprised: - Out of the five countries, Italy attracted the #lowest number of new citizens with #tertiary #education—just 15% compared to 44% in Germany, 35% in the UK, 31% in France, and 18% in Spain. - Despite this, new citizens in Italy are part of the #bottom 38% in terms of #socioeconomic #placement, compared to 35% in Spain, 32% in France, 30% in Germany, and 22% in the UK. 🎓 Why do these numbers matter? Two key reasons: - A lower level of education among new citizens translates into lower #productivity, reduced #innovation, and slower national #growth. - Despite the lower education levels, the fact that new citizens in Italy still rank higher on the socioeconomic scale than their counterparts in other countries suggests that the #social #ladder is #broken. There's a lack of #meritocracy, meaning there's no incentive to pursue higher education if #salaries remain similar to those without it. 🇮🇹 This is another insight into how our country desperately needs better #policies and fewer hollow #promises and #advertisements from #politicians. 🎧 You can find the link to the latest podcast episode here (only in Italian): https://lnkd.in/disnpHnu -- I am Carlo Giannone and I discuss about geopolitics and economics every week on my podcast Finanza, pizza e mandolino and on my LinkedIn page

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Discover how sustainability drives value creation at the Responsible Investment Forum: Europe, 20-21 November 2024. Join Manuela Fumarola, Viviana Occhionorelli, Elena Mariotti, and Will Relle for a panel session where they’ll discuss effective ESG integration, ESG risks and opportunities, and how technology can support portfolio companies' value creation plans. View the full agenda here: https://okt.to/MaCYn8 #RIFEurope #Sustainability #ESG #ValueCreation #ResponsibleInvesting

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