BanksMay 30, 2018

Intesa Sanpaolo collaborates with OurCrowd for funding SMEs and startups

By Intesa,

Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center, subsidiary of the Intesa Sanpaolo Group that promotes innovation development processes and plans, and OurCrowd, a world leader in equity crowdfunding and a fast-growing Venture Capital platform, announced today that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the aim to promote startup access to international capital markets.

Over the past year, OurCrowd has made significant strides in Western Europe, expanding its leadership in London and Madrid, increasing its investor base across multiple regions and introducing formal relationships with key multinational corporations such as Halma in the UK and Innogy in Germany.

As an institutional partner, Intesa will provide tailored access for its corporate and SME clients into OurCrowd’s hightech portfolio, leveraging synergies with strong potential to deliver faster go-to-market traction. The alliance aims to catalyze innovation in multiple technologies and industrial sectors.

“Today’s launch of our formal partnership signals our sincere commitment to engaging with Italian corporate and startup influencers as we continue our expansion across Europe,” said Jon Medved, OurCrowd CEO. “We have enjoyed working with Intesa’s team on various initiatives and joint projects, and this agreement will accelerate the activity between our companies and between two very important economies in the technology ecosystem”.

“The agreement confirms the focus on the startup ecosystem for the Intesa Sanpaolo Group”, commented Mario Costantini, general manager of Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center. “The partnership has the dual target of making available to our business customers the best Israeli technologies and, on the other side, our best startups will have access to the network of over 25,000 international investors of OurCrowd”.

The collaboration additionally targets opportunities for the bank’s network of startups, SME’s and corporate clients to actively access one of the world’s largest equity crowdfunding platforms, which has raised over USD 700 million from over 25,000 investors across all over the world for over 150 early stage companies.

OurCrowd launched its first banking and institutional partnerships in early 2016 and has actively expanded its alliances with financial firms and multinational corporations over the last two years as channels for collaboration, co-investment, and cultivation of local innovation ecosystems, leveraging OurCrowd’s expertise and vast portfolio of tech startups. Other current bank partnerships include National Australia Bank, Singapore’s United Overseas Bank in ASEAN, Citic Pacific in Hong Kong, Reliance Private Client in India, Shanghai Commercial Savings Bank in Taiwan, and Bangkok Bank in Thailand.