The event was organized on October 9th by DOCOMO Digital and Politecnico di Milano, partners of the Altfinator Project, – with the moderation of Gianni Rusconi, journalist of “IlSole24Ore” – brought together over 20 stakeholders representing Italy, Portugal and Spain, to provide their own point of view on the potential that the adoption of alternative finance tools can have on start-ups and SMEs.

Starting points of the discussion were some key elements emerged from the recent activities of mapping and analysis of the ecosystem conducted by the partners of the ALTFInator project:

• Tax incentives with poor impact and bureaucratic burdensome procedures
• Poor awareness of the Alternative Finance instruments available
• Lack of resources within SMEs to be ready for investments
• Aversion to risk and lack of trust on both demand and supply sides
• Poor collaboration between Alternative Finance and Traditional Finance.

As well as confirming what emerged from the consortium’s analyses, the discussion helped draw the potential strategy for strengthening the adoption of alternative funding for start-ups and SMEs across Europe.

• The experts highlighted what the challenges of the ecosystem should be, and which activities and initiatives should be taken into consideration.
• The key elements that emerged from the roundtable will be used to finalize the strategy of the ALTFInator project:
• Create ‘financial culture’ in companies and their advisors
• Understand the importance of financing instruments as complementary to each other, and not mutually exclusive
• Change the perception of ‘risk’ by investor and make aware that investment in ‘business’ is the only one that can promise a financial return today.
• Standardize EU information and regulatory standards and align fiscal incentives with the European average
• Put start-ups at the centre as trigger for business development of each country
• Activate impactful measures that bring cash flows for investments, such as the obligation to withdraw net reserves from insurance companies, pension funds, etc. to channel them on Corporate Venture Capital and Venture Capital funds.

In addition to DOCOMO Digital and Politecnico di Milano, promoters of the meeting, have been actively involved: 360Capital Partners, Accenture Italia, AIEC, AIFI, AssoFintech, Borsa Italiana, CrowdAdvisors, FT Accelerator, ItaliaFinTech, MamaCrowd, MoneyFarm, StartupItalia!, Workinvoice, Portugal Ventures e Catalonian Agency for Business Competitiveness.

PEDAL Consulting is one of the partners of the Altfinator project.