We initially announced it during the Venture Camp in Venice, and then earlier this year.
Now the Mind the Bridge Gymnasium is finally a reality!
Managed by 3 partners (Fabrizio Capobianco – Funambol, Matteo D’Aste – BAIA and myself), the idea is to offer a physical (and mental!) space in the heart of Silicon Valley to Italian startups with high growth potential.
We decided to host it within the Plug & Play tech center, one of the most established incubators in the valley with over 200 startups from multiple countries. They provide the physical space and visibility with investors, we provide hands-on services such as mentoring, regular business plan reviews and an opening to our personal networks to maximize the startup chances of success.
Today the GYM is a project under the umbrella of the Mind the Bridge foundation.
The first startups hosted in our offices in Redwood City are The Reliables and Eris 4, both finalists of the 08/09 business plan competition.
We are evaluating possible candidates on a regular basis but the bar to be invited is pretty high.
Here’s a post and video from Fabrizio’s blog (Silicon Valley Italia, in Italian).
A few words on the GYM location.
The Plug & Play is not the sort of incubator a lot of Italian entrepreneurs expect, but it is a true opportunity hub. At present P&P hosts more than 250 start-ups, and you have not only an office space with facilities (i.e. reliable and fast Internet access, phone, meeting rooms, servers, drinks, printer, M&Ms and so forth), but you have several opportunities to meet investors every week (let me repeat, every week), you have a number of incredibly effective networking events, you can attend sessions in which successful entrepreneurs (I mean, people who built up companies everyone knows) give you down-to-earth advices on how to do it, you have big companies routinely meeting you to discover new ideas to support.
That gives you the concrete opportunity to present your ideas and plans to people who are there to actually listen to you, to give you feedbacks and, eventually, to invest in you. That’s amazing!
It seems very interesting. Compliments for this initiative.