Author: Charlotte Burnod (LGI Sustainable Innovation)
How does VeniSIA leverage Venice’s unique environmental and cultural context to drive sustainable innovation and address sustainability challenges?
Launched in 2021, VeniSIA, the Venice Sustainability Innovation Accelerator, aims to develop and scale business ideas and technological solutions to address environmental, social, and economic challenges in Venice and beyond. Conceived by Carlo Bagnoli, Professor of Strategy Innovation at the Department of Management of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, the initiative targets companies (both corporations and SMEs), startups, researchers, master's students, donors, and institutions interested in pursuing or supporting sustainable innovation.
Environmental and social challenges in Venice
Venice suffers from various challenges, including frequent flooding exacerbated by climate change. In 2019, the city experienced its second-worst flooding event in nearly a century. Rising sea levels, combined with the fact that Venice itself is sinking due to its unstable foundation and historical groundwater extraction, pose significant threats. Venice has sunk roughly 15cm over the past century, and it continues to sink about two millimeters each year.
Overtourism places a severe strain on Venice's local resources and infrastructure. The city, with around 50,000 permanent residents in its historic center, sees an estimated 20 million tourists annually. This massive influx disrupts daily life, depletes resources, and accelerates the deterioration of historic sites. Tourism, while economically beneficial, has also driven up rents and property prices, making it difficult for residents to find affordable accommodation.
Venice's resident population in the city center has drastically declined from 174,000 in 1951 to less than 50,000 in 2022. This depopulation is driven by the rise in rents and property prices fueled by tourism. As a result, ordinary shops disappear, and the city's social fabric weakens, threatening Venice's unique cultural heritage and community life.
VeniSIA aims to address these challenges through a Deep Tech approach, believing that business model innovation can catalyze system-wide sustainability transitions. The goal is to exploit the city for acceleration activities by:
- Attracting researchers, startups, and workers to live a unique life experience while tackling Venice's sustainability challenges.
- Inspiring VeniSIA’s community of innovators to blend tradition with innovation, using Venice's historical context as a sustainability reference.
- Promoting sustainability innovation projects worldwide, leveraging Venice’s international visibility to enhance marketing efforts.
- Conducting “in vivo” experiments to test innovative technology solutions and SDGs-driven business models in Venice's unique environment.
For example, Venice is affected by sea level rise and climate change. Startups supported by VeniSIA can develop solutions around satellite data, weather forecast technologies, and electric port infrastructures.
Co-Innovation Program on Climate Change & Circular Economy
The co-innovation program scouts business ideas and technology solutions for corporate artners and develops innovative Proof-of-Concepts (POCs) to meet the partners’ sustainability challenges:
- Scouting and matching: The program identifies innovative solutions that align with Corporate Partners’ sustainability goals and matches them to their specific challenges and financial objectives.
- Development of POCs: The Co-Innovation Program is a 12-month experience with the final aim of identifying the perfect business or technological match and developing win- win long-term partnership.
- Networking and visibility: Participants benefit from networking events, such as Innovation Camps and Demo Days, boosting their international visibility and connecting them to relevant stakeholders and potential investors through VeniSIA’s global network.
In 2023, the program challenges were on the themes of sustainable mobility, environment protection, agritech, renewable energy, sustainable fashion, circular economy, and smart cities & communities. The 2023 finalists included Atium (waste water management), Reverion (biomethane efficiency), and CuRe Technology (sustainable packaging).
Other programs
VeniSIA's other programs include:
- ARGO, the Accelerator on Tourism and Travel Tech, supports startups with innovative solutions in the tourism sector. Managed by LVenture Group, this three-year program is part of the “Rete Nazionale Acceleratori” of CDP Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, with VeniSIA and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice as local operators.
- Future Farming Initiative: This venture builder, funded by NextGenerationEU, is a collaboration between Ca’ Foscari University and ZERO, supported by several universities in northeast Italy. It aims to launch new technology-push startups in farming, with industrial partners joining through R&D or tech partnerships.
- iNEST Innovation Ecosystem is a new model for innovation ecosystems involving universities, research institutions, and companies. It focuses on technology specialization and enhances cooperation among research, economic players, and institutions to facilitate technology transfer, digital transformation, and sustainable development.
Operating model: virtuous circle of acceleration
VeniSIA's "virtuous circle of acceleration" can be broken down into the following steps:
- Identify challenges: Companies pinpoint their main sustainable development challenges, with VeniSIA guiding them to design and develop sustainability innovation projects.
- Engage innovators: Through an international call to action, top researchers and startups are invited to provide business ideas and technological solutions for these projects.
- Launch projects: Research labs and startups are established in Venice, backed by funding companies. VeniSIA accelerates these initiatives by offering training, mentoring, project management, and other support services.
- Attract investors: Tested business ideas and technological solutions are promoted among international investors, VCs, and donors to secure further funding and unlock commercial opportunities.
- Expand participation: Additional companies are drawn to Venice to test and refine sustainability solutions that can later be implemented globally.
- Offer internships: Master’s students, particularly from Ca’ Foscari University, are selected for internships in corporate labs, supporting the sustainability innovation projects.
- Build community: A vibrant community of innovators and smart workers is cultivated, attracting global talent to Venice for a unique living and working experience.
Key resources and potential for replication
VeniSIA’s model of leveraging a city’s unique characteristics to drive sustainable innovation can be replicated in other cities facing similar challenges. Key factors for replication include:
- Strong academic and research institutions;
- Collaboration between public and private sectors;
- Access to funding and investment;
- Engaged community of innovators and entrepreneurs;
- Focus on scalable and impactful solutions aligned with SDGs.
Although the program was only launched in 2021, VeniSIA has already achieved the following milestones: 8 corporate partners, 23 startups selected, 10 startups settled in Venice, 100 people hired in Venice, and over 50 million euros raised by 9-Tech, Ges and Radoff.
VeniSIA's "ultimate purpose is not to make an accelerator in Venice but to make an accelerator out of Venice" (VeniSIA co-innovation program, 2023).
Images from Unsplash: Venice (Angelo Casto), Bridge of Sighs (Soroush Karimi), and hand sculpture (Sterling Lanier).