A 50/50 Invitalia score, and a €1.5m package approved

The problem

A foreign group cannot simply apply for an Italian instrument and hope the structure holds. Smart&Start requires an innovative startup with a registered legal and operating seat in Italy, special-section registration, and an operating site that has to be demonstrable by the first disbursement — with loss of the benefit as the stated consequence for getting it wrong.

So the funding question and the corporate structuring question are the same question. The plan had to describe a business the assessor found credible, and the entity had to be one that could actually satisfy the scheme's conditions three years later.

What was built

The complete business plan narrative across all six required sections — business idea, innovative value proposition, market opportunity, market characteristics, operational strategy, and economic-financial sustainability. A six-sheet financial model sized to the €1.5m ceiling, with the plan's numbers tying to the model rather than sitting beside it.

The long-form interview answers in Italian, and a timed thirty-minute interview script section by section — because Smart&Start is decided at interview at least as much as on paper. Alongside that, the corporate formation paperwork: a trilingual power of attorney and the Invitalia annexes.

The regional strategy was a genuine contribution rather than a formality. Bari as the European headquarters, with the agri-food and logistics relationships that make the commercial plan credible to someone who knows Puglia.

How the package was composed

€308,996 of machinery and equipment, €44,075 of software and telecoms, and €1,141,800 of working capital — raw materials, packaging, utilities and rent, consulting, and payroll across office and production.

The composition is not arbitrary. Smart&Start disburses by reimbursement against paid invoices, so the working-capital weighting reflects what the company can actually evidence as it spends, not what looks impressive on a slide.

The part most files get wrong

Smart&Start pays by reimbursement. Every invoice has to reference the scheme and the protocol number, be issued to the company, and be paid from the corporate account with full traceability. Costs are eligible only from the first evaluation result onwards. Before incorporation the rules change again.

That discipline has to be designed before the first euro is spent. A company that treats rendicontazione as a problem for next year spends the following two years arguing about invoices it can no longer fix.