NEVA SGR INVESTS IN BIO4DREAMS

• The Intesa Sanpaolo Group's venture capital company, through its Fondo Sei - Sviluppo ecosistemi di innovazione fund, has entered the capital of the Italian incubator of innovative start-ups operating in the Life Sciences sector.
• With Neva Sgr, Bio4Dreams consolidates its position in the Italian innovation ecosystem and aims to strengthen its internal structure, with the aim of accelerating the development of its activities at an international level.
  
• Mario Costantini: “Neva Sgr's investment in Bio4Dreams aims to support and accelerate innovation in the Life Sciences sector in Italy”.
• Elisabetta Borello: “The synergies that Bio4Dreams will be able to create with the various players in the Intesa Sanpaolo Group's innovation system will be crucial”.

Turin/Milan, 16 July 2024 - Neva Sgr, the Intesa Sanpaolo Group's venture capital company, has entered the capital of Bio4Dreams Spa, an Italian incubator of innovative start-ups at a very early stage operating in the Life Sciences sector, through its Fondo Sei - Sviluppo ecosistemi di innovazione fund.

Entirely underwritten by Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center, the Group's company dedicated to frontier innovation, Fondo Sei is an alternative investment fund established and managed by Neva Sgr whose objective is to support the growth of the Italian innovation ecosystem through targeted investments in vehicles that implement research, selection, acceleration and professionalisation programmes for promising start-ups.

With the entry of Neva Sgr's Fondo Sei and the collaboration already initiated with Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center, Bio4Dreams consolidates its position in the Italian innovation ecosystem and aims to strengthen its internal structure, with the aim of accelerating the development of its activities at an international level.

The entry of Fondo Sei is a further confirmation of the results achieved by Bio4Dreams in six years of intense work both in Italy and abroad, a path that has led the company to become a European benchmark for innovation in the country, actively contributing to the evolution of territorial ecosystems in the Life Sciences field.

Since 2018, to date the Bio4Dreams incubator has evaluated around 1600 entrepreneurial projects from the ecosystems it presides over in Italy (Milan, Turin, Genoa, Como, Bolzano, Trento, Trieste, Venice, Siena and Naples) and abroad (Pécs in Hungary, Krakow in Poland and Cambridge, Massachusetts in the US), launching customised incubation paths for 47 start-ups and innovative SMEs and creating a portfolio of 15 investee companies with a total value of more than €71 million. The realities supported by the incubator are positioned in the main Life Sciences sectors, from pharmaceuticals to medical devices, from diagnostics to E-Health up to Agri-foodtech and the circular bio-economy.

Fondo Sei's investment includes a new member in the Bio4Dreams board of directors appointed by Neva Sgr.

Mario Costantini, CEO and General Manager of Neva Sgr, states: “Neva Sgr's investment in Bio4Dreams aims to support and accelerate innovation in the Life Sciences sector in Italy. Our country boasts many excellent researchers and start-uppers, but they often prefer to go abroad to develop their ideas and realise their projects. With our Fondo Sei, we are proud to be able to support Bio4Dreams in its growth, an incubator that helps to retain and attract highly innovative start-ups to our region”.

Elisabetta Borello, Co-Founder, VP Strategy & External Relations at Bio4Dreams, says: "We are excited and honoured to have Neva Sgr at our side, through Fondo Sei, and to collaborate with Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center. The synergies that Bio4Dreams will be able to create with the various players in the Intesa Sanpaolo Group's innovation system will be crucial to continuing along the growth path, to chart new courses and to face the challenges that await us in the coming years”.

Media Relations

Intesa Sanpaolo

Corporate & Investment Banking and Governance Areas

stampa@intesasanpaolo.com

www.intesasanpaolo.com/it/news