Issue link: http://endeavor.uberflip.com/i/1202586
3 R E S E A R C H Q U E S T I O N S The purpose of this study is to identify how fintech companies in the Milan metropolitan area are reaching scale, what are the greatest opportunities fintech entrepreneurs can leverage to grow and what are the main scale-up challenges decision makers can address. Endeavor Insight identified 113 fintech companies founded or headquartered in Milan, collected primary data with surveys and interviews with the founders of 64 of them, and secondary data from other publically available data sources like Linkedin and Crunchbase on additional 159 founders. The fintech companies mentioned in the report are relied to a range of sub- industries: tech enablers, crowdfunding, credit, asset management, payments, insurtech, cybersecurity, and cryptocurrencies. 49 percent of the 113 companies in the dataset are business to business (B2B) companies; about 30 percent are business to customer (B2C) companies; and the rest are "business- to-business-to-customer" (B2B2C). These latter typically offer solutions targeting financial advisory businesses or banks, who would then apply them towards customer-facing solutions. For the purpose of this report, the term "Milan" refers to the greater Milan Metropolitan Area, which includes the provinces of Milan, Bergamo, Varese, Monza, Como, Pavia, Lecco, and Lodi, an area with a total population of about 7.8 million people, and a labor force accounting about 3.7 million people. Of the 3.7 million working population, an estimated 3.2 million are employed in the private sector1. "Fintech companies" in this study are defined as "companies that have developed or offer a technological solution dedicated to enabling financial services", or as "technology companies whose corporate revenue is mainly linked to the financial services industry". Three principal research questions guided the research process: 1. What is the current state of the fintech entrepreneurial community in Milan today? 2. What is the role of support organizations and other institutions in fostering entrepreneurship and economic growth in the sector? 3. Where do opportunities exist to further the growth of this community so that it can generate more jobs and wealth for the region?