Rome, 18 July 2022 - CDP Venture Capital Sgr announces the start of the call for Personae, the accelerator for start-ups that develop new welfare solutions or services linked to individuals, communities and companies. The programme is part of the CDP National Accelerators Network, the network operating across the territory to help the growth of young companies specialised in high-potential markets.

Personae was born out of the initiative of CDP Venture Capital Sgr, through the Accelerators Fund, and is created together with SocialFare | Centro per l’Innovazione Sociale and a|cube, Italy's leading accelerators in guiding start-ups and companies with a high social and environmental impact, which will manage the process from an operational point of view.

The programme's total assets under management amount to 6.1 million euro for investments in the acceleration phase and for the subsequent growth steps, 3.5 million euro of which was allocated by CDP Venture Capital's Accelerators Fund, 1.774 million euro by Social Fare Seed, 632 thousand euro by a|impact - Avanzi Etica SICAF EuVECA and 224 thousand euro by Fondazione Italiana Accenture.

The initiative also benefits from the support of Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Cuneo and Fondazione Social Venture Giordano Dell’Amore as main partners. Accenture participates in Personae as corporate partner.

Personae aims to support the development of start-ups capable of responding in innovative ways to the most current challenges in the welfare sector, such as demographic imbalance, the fragmentation of family structures, the birth of new relational models or the strengthening of situations of social vulnerability. The proposed solution must include characteristics of accessibility, personalisation, flexibility, inclusion, innovation and fall within the areas of individual, work, economic or family and community well-being. 

Personae will select up to 10 startups each year for three years, which will receive an initial investment of 100.000 euro and will participate in a 4-month acceleration programme focused on growth for market access enriched by mentoring and tutoring sessions carried out by the SocialFare and a|cube team in collaboration with their network of professionals and with the participation of Italian and international investors.

The best projects will have access to further investments of up to 300.000 euro per start-up, already allocated by the initiative's investors and co-investors. 

The acceleration programme will take place alternating online and face-to-face sessions in the premises of Rinascimenti Sociali in Turin - made available by SocialFare - and in the premises of Avanzi Coworking in Milan - made available by a|cube.  

Interested start-ups can submit their applications until 2 October on personae-accelerator.com. The call is open to Italian and international start-ups intending to set up a registered office in Italy.