Velasca of Milan, 3dnextech of Livorno, Macnil of Gravina in Puglia, MegaRide of Naples, Rifò of Prato, Packtin of Reggio Emilia, Hipert of Modena, AzzurroDigitale of Padua. They are Italian companies, some already known, others not yet, from North to South they bring the innovation typical of startups into already existing local industrial fabrics. Giulio Buciuni, professor of Business Innovation at the business school of Trinity College Dublin, coined a new term to define them, «imprese plug-in», and recounted them in his book “Outsider Innovators. New business models for Italian capitalism” (Il Mulino, 2024), coming out these days, which partly continues the discussion begun a year ago with the essay “Competitive Suburbs. The development of territories in the knowledge economy” written with Giancarlo Corò.
The context from which Buciuni’s analysis starts is that of the knowledge economy, in which technological innovation increasingly tends to concentrate in a few large global hubs, metropolises in which large companies, universities and research centers are concentrated skills and capital. A global context in which the Italian industrial provinces risk becoming marginal places: on the one hand, in fact, the Innovative startups following the Silicon Valley model are struggling to take root in our industrial contexton the other hand, traditional small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) often do not have the human, technological and financial capital necessary to innovate their products, processes and business models.
It is in the wedge between these two dimensions that the innovative and creative drive of a third entrepreneurial typology is inserted: they are the “plug-in companies”, which the author studied between 2023 and 2024. Learning from these concrete examples, it is the thesis of the book, the model of industrial districts, which has made Italy’s fortune since the seventies, can change its skin, transforming itself into an ecosystem in which local production traditions and the typical methods of the world of startups.
“Plug-in companies inject new technological solutions, knowledge, products and business models within mature industrial sectors – explains Giulio Buciuni –, contributing to the upgrading of manufacturing companies and the industrial system as a whole. They behave, at all effects, as system updaters and allow a series of industrial territories to have access to new forms of knowledge and business models. They therefore offer us a new entrepreneurial model for the future of Italian capitalism, which can find a home in the places who today seem excluded from the circuit of the great innovation hubs, restoring centrality and relevance to the Italian industrial territories”.
The eight case studies described in the book, they operate along some of the main supply chains of the Made in Italy industry such as automotive, textile-clothing, footwear, agri-food and mechanics. They are different in geography, technological focus and entrepreneurial history, but converge on some fundamental aspects. First of all, they are not manufacturing companies in the classic sense: some create software or predictive calculation models for industrial purposes, others products which however are manufactured by a network of external suppliers, and in all cases the investment in the development of technological and digital occupies a central position in their business model. A second common element is the provision of qualified human capital: in at least six of the eight cases considered, former university researchers and staff in possession of a research doctorate are now employed. Furthermore, the average age of the staff employed by the companies in the sample does not exceed 30 years.
The third common factor is the openness to the entry of external capital into the company, a choice dictated by the need to finance particularly expensive product development activities or to support marketing and commercial development plans. The average profitability value of the companies in the sample measured through the EBITDA index stands at a value of 20%, approximately four times the average value recorded for Italian manufacturing companies.
The eight plug-in companies analyzed
Velascaan e-commerce dedicated to quality footwear founded by Enrico Casati and Jacopo Sebastio, was born in Milan but has a deep connection with the footwear district of Montegranaro in the province of Fermo, in the Marche region. Velasca transfers to a series of local stakeholders (especially some dedicated suppliers) a series of skills, technological-digital solutions and new approaches to doing business that contribute to an upgrading of the local production system.
3dnextechfounded in Livorno by Andrea Arienti after working as a researcher at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa, operates in the industrial sector of additive manufacturing. Unlike most contemporary digital startups, which have the production of software as their core business, the Livorno company creates physical devices capable of increasing the aesthetic yield and technical-functional performance of the artefacts produced through 3D printing.
Macnilfounded in Gravina in Puglia (Bari) by Mariarita Costanza and Nicola Laventura, is today one of the leaders in Italy in the design of integrated systems for the automotive and transport sector. The connections with the Polytechnic of Bari allow us to attract qualified human resources and the collaboration with a local transport company has allowed us to specialize in the production of software for satellite localization and the management of vehicle fleets.
MegaRide was born in Naples as a spin-off of the Federico II University, in the Campania NewSteel incubator, and is today led by Flavio Farroni, Francesco Timpone and Aleksandr Sakhnevych. It develops calculation models for the real-time simulation of tire behavior and performance, working for the main car manufacturers and important tire production companies. It has created an ecosystem around itself that includes 4 other startups.
Reinforcement was founded in Prato by Niccolò Cipriani, who in the context of the Tuscan textile district was among the first to understand the importance of environmental sustainability and the reuse of textile fibres. Born and spread in the B2C market with the identity of a circular fashion brand, the Tuscan company focuses on pre- and post-production functions such as the design and development of new products, marketing, sales and assistance after-sales, while managing the production phases in outsourcing.
Packtin of Reggio Emilia is a spin-off of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia that was born from a technology developed by some researchers, including the partner Riccardo De Leo, for the reuse of natural by-products that are created during the transformation process of fruit and vegetables. This involves, for example, the recovery and reuse of materials such as orange and tomato peels which are generated by the production of fruit juices or tomato puree.
Hyper of Modena was also born as a spin-off of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. The technological focus of Marko Bertogna’s company is concentrated in the development and application of artificial intelligence algorithms to machines and devices to enable the autonomous driving of vehicles in uncontrolled working environments, such as ports, agricultural lands, construction sites and even deserts. Its development is closely linked to university laboratories and the Emilian automotive supply chain.
AzzurroDigitale was founded in Padua by Carlo Pasqualetto, Jacopo Pertile and Antonio Fornari to support the technological evolution of Italian industrial companies and make their production processes more efficient. After several years of operation it changed its skin and started new entrepreneurial activities, without however sacrificing its original mission. Today AzzurroDigitale is one of the most innovative companies developing software solutions for the industrial sector in the Italian scenario.