Exor Ventures

In 2021 we literally shot for the moon on so many different levels. Internally, we launched Vento. We realised talking about tech and educating people about innovation was not enough anymore, we wanted to have an active role in the future of entrepreneurship in Italy. Vento became the Italian chapter of Exor Ventures focused on scouting the brightest minds to build disruptive new businesses. While we were pushing Italian founders to go from a challenge to a moonshot, we organised the third edition of ITW. And who comes to mind when you think about shooting for the moon? Or maybe we should say Mars? Yes, you got it right. Elon Musk was the main guest of Italian Tech Week in 2021. “I encourage people to be optimistic, take the actions that will create a good future, and we will have one” was the main takeaway from the conversation between John Elkann and Elon Musk. And judging from the increasing number of incredible founders with great ideas we’ve seen since that moment (you know who you are!), we can definitely say the message was well received. As you enjoy these pictures from 2021, get ready for ITW 2023, only 13 days away!

With the world shutting down in 2020, technology played a pivotal role in helping people adapt to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. From remote working to space exploration, society as we knew it was changing forever. For obvious reasons we could not host our second edition of ITW, but that didn’t stop us from trying to bring people closer to technology and innovation. Italian Tech Week was substituted with Italian Tech Speak: a 17-episode technology podcast whose goal was to give voice to those who have changed their lives (and their work) through technology. From the starred chef to the founder of a successful Italian startup, from the singer who boasts dozens of hits to the young biomedical engineer who deals with robotics. Featuring guests such as John Elkann, Max Pezzali, Davide Dattoli and Luca Ferrari, Italian Tech Speak counted over 3.5 million streams. Here are three of our favorite episodes: 📱 Luca Ferrari: Co-founder of Bending Spoons, shared how a failed startup in his past helped him create one of the greatest companies we now have in our country. 💜 Silvia Wang: Co-founder of ProntoPro & Serenis, talked to us about how a great startup idea can come from the personal need of organising a wedding. 🎶 Max pezzali: Famous pop singer, explained how technology constantly influences the music industry, democratising musical productions and revolutionising the rules of music with social media. Enjoy these inspiring talks as you get ready for ITW 2023! (Link to the whole podcast in the first comment 👇 )

“A tech event in Italy with successful speakers from all over the world? That’s impossible, the ecosystem is not ready”. It was 2018, Spotify had just filed its IPO, and that’s what people told us when we announced we wanted to launch what later became Italian Tech Week. But we were convinced Italy had to start somewhere. And so we thought: why not Turin? Why not with us? We pulled together all our resources: the incredible network Exor Ventures built over the years, our tech expertise, our community in Italy. And we did it: June 2018. Italy had its own small Tech Event. It was called SEI Torino Forum, and our mission was to inspire future entrepreneurs. 100 promising founders came to learn about what it takes to go from 0 to 1 directly from the words and experience of Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal and first external investor of Facebook. People started talking to each other, sharing ideas, getting inspired. Relationships were forming, whether in front of a glass of wine or during a panel about Networking held by Reid Hoffman himself, the co-founder of LinkedIn. And our team, although buried with work, was there to witness the incredible phenomenon that we truly hoped would happen: the ecosystem was coming together. All the rooms of Fondazione Agnelli were full of (still unexploited) potential, and what’s even more beautiful is that people started realising it. An infinite number of things have changed in in the past 5 years but our mission remained the same. In the next days we’ll be sharing memories, behind the scenes, anecdotes and key moments from the past editions of Italian Tech Week: join us in this walk along memory lane as we get ready for the 6th edition of ITW, coming up in just 16 days! A tech event in Italy with successful speakers from all over the world? That’s exactly what the ecosystem needed. And we, at Exor, knew it. In the picture, from left to right, all the people who believed in this event at the very beginning: Taavet Hinrikus (founder of Wise), Diego Piacentini, Mike Volpi (partner Index Ventures), Matt Cohler, Daniel Ramot (founder of Via), Demet Suzan Mutlu (founder of Trendyol Group), Luciana Lixandru (partner at Sequoia Capital), Reid Hoffman,Mike Butcher, Alexander Karp (founder of Palantir Technologies, Sissel Hansen (founder of Startup Guide), Riccardo Zacconi (co founder of King), John Elkan, Roni Bonjack.