Abstract
Italian SMEs have often
been the focus of attention of institutions, financial intermediaries and the
media. More recently, interest has been turned to start-ups and innovative
businesses with a series of legislative interventions. The empirical study,
conducted through a questionnaire given to a few incubators/accelerators,
venture capital operators and business angels, confirmed that the situation is,
on the whole, still developing and is still a long way from having consolidated
and definitive structures and practices in place. The operators involved
highlighted, on one side, an activity which is growing quite fast, even if the
behaviours and modus operandi are different, and, on the other side, the
relevance of co-investment operations, networking activity and cooperation in
general, together with a constant and adequate stock of financial resources to
permanently allocate to this type of companies.