First Elite Lounge 2024: financial acceleration opportunities for 26 SMEs

Intesa Sanpaolo is launching its first Elite Lounge 2024, which will support 26 SMEs with a financial acceleration programme to develop new skills and facilitate access to private and public capital markets.

The programme includes:

• highly qualified training courses
• expert advice from the most solid, important partners in Italy
• access to a European network of entrepreneurs, top executives and investors, including institutional investors

with a focus on the issues of internationalisation, technological innovation, sustainability, good governance and procurement of the right financial resources.

The 26 SMEs selected for this edition come from all over Italy and various industrial sectors of excellence in the Italian economy, including agribusiness, construction, energy and pharmaceuticals.

More than 400 companies have taken part in Intesa Sanpaolo's Elite Lounges: those that took part between 2018 and 2022 achieved 6% growth by revenue and 8% by EBITDA, underscoring the effectiveness of the programme to accelerate their development.

ELITE is Euronext's ecosystem that helps small and medium-sized enterprises to grow and access capital markets, and it has had a partnership with Intesa Sanpaolo to support the country's entrepreneurial fabric for six years now.

Intesa Sanpaolo devotes specific attention to the transformation and renewal processes needed for businesses to grow and remain competitive. To this end, it has recently launched the programme “Il tuo futuro è la nostra impresa” (“Your future is our business”), which will make €120 billion available through 2026 to support companies with the challenges of the energy and digital transition, while also facilitating their access to NRRP measures.