Squire Patton Boggs has advised a number of Italian and international investors in a venture building project dedicated to accelerating innovation and growth among Italian maritime SMEs.
The Boost Innovation Fund and CDP Venture Capital, in agreement with the Ministry of Enterprise and Made in Italy, has facilitated the establishment of a special-purpose company dedicated to building and launching new business initiatives that will develop products or services for the digitalization and innovation of SMEs operating in the nautical and port-logistics sectors.
With an investment of €8.7 million, the objective of the ‘Nautical and Port Logistics Sector Venture Builder’ project is to create 10 new enterprises over the next three years that will receive subsequent equity investments by CDP Venture Capital’s Boost Innovation Fund (the SGR’s corporate venture building fund) of approximately €30 million.
The new businesses will help bridge the process and technology gaps of SMEs developing components and services in the shipbuilding, yachting, cruise and port logistics sectors.
Investors in the project include Bridgemaker, a German venture builder, Cariplo Factory, an open innovation hub which will operate in joint venture as venture builder partners managing the construction of the new initiatives, Fincantieri, which operates in the shipbuilding industry, PSA Italy, which has three container terminals in Italy and accounts for 25% of the country’s import-export, Intesa Sanpaolo Group through Fondo Sei, Sviluppo Ecosistemi Innovativi of Neva Sgr, the Group’s venture capital company, Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, which supports the development of the Genoa and Liguria area, and Friulia, Friuli-Venezia Giulia’s regional administration’s holding company, which supports the development of the regional territory.
The Intesa Sanpaolo Group will also contribute through the consultancy of Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center, a company dedicated to the promotion and development of innovation, which controls Neva Sgr and will support the interaction between the project management and the ecosystem of SMEs belonging to the production chains involved.
Other institutional partners include the Municipality of Genoa, which will host the company’s operational headquarters in the Genoa Blue District, the Friuli-Venezia Giulia Region, which will host the company’s Trieste operational headquarters, and Confindustria Genova.
A Squire Patton Boggs team led by partner Daniela Sabelli, assisted by Juancarlos Pirani and Francesco Cieri, supported CDP Venture Capital and all the other investors in, inter alia, the negotiation and drafting of the investment and quotaholders’ agreement and additional legal contracts and documents, incorporation of a new company under Italian law and the submission of the FDI filing.