FAROS

Faros is the Accelerator for startups operating in the Blue Economy.

Faros stems from an initiative of CDP Venture Capital Sgr through its Accelerators Fund, and is implemented together with a|cube, an accelerator and incubator focused on entities with a high social and environmental impact.

The program benefits from the major support of Autorità di Sistema Portuale del Mar Ionio – Porto di Taranto, as an institutional and territorial partner geared towards the global promotion of the Ionian port, as well as the relaunch of Taranto's industrial-logistic and tourism system, and the Municipality of Taranto as institutional partner.

The Faros programme also sees the involvement as corporate partners of Eni, through Joule, its school for innovative entrepreneurs, JV Tempa Rossa*, BCC San Marzano and Marraffa. Other partners of the Taranto port and logistics ecosystem, both at national and international level, are in the process of joining.

With initial assets under management of approximately 3 million euro allocated by CDP Venture Capital’s Accelerators Fund for acceleration investments and subsequent follow-ons post-acceleration, in addition to over 1 million Euro from corporate and institutional partners, the accelerator Faros aims to enhance the growth of startups that develop innovative products or solutions in the areas of port logistics and automation, the sustainable use of marine resources and coastal tourism, which represent sectors with great development potential. 

Each year and for three years, around 8 start-ups in the seed and pre-seed stages will be selected and will then be able to access a structured process of support from the accelerator’s partners, which will guide them towards the validation of their business model. Furthermore, the best teams will have access to additional investments already allocated by the initiative’s promoters. The selected start-ups will participate in an acceleration and mentoring programme lasting approximately 4 months, during which they will be able to access open innovation activities, as well as the development of a pilot project with some of the corporate partners involved and a pre-seed equity investment of up to 65,000 euro. 

The call for the selection of the first startups was open until 15 February 2022 on the website farosaccelerator.com.

The first batch of Faros will go from April until October 2022.