Eighty business angels from all over Italy met yesterday in Progetto Manifattura, Rovereto, to celebrate the first birthday of Club Trentino degli Investitori.

A positive balance for the network of entrepreneurs, incubators, accelerators, banks, private equity funds, venture capital and foreign investors coordinated by Trentino Sviluppo within the framework of the European Interreg VA program for Italy-Austria cross-border cooperation. In less than a year, indeed, the Club’s membership has doubled, from the initial 30 to the current 80 members.

Since last July, the Club has evaluated over 170 companies and startups looking for financing. In May, in order to identify and enhance the most innovative local business ideas, the Club has put in place an evaluation committee comprising five experts, who yesterday, after careful review, promoted five local startups with flying colors, offering them the opportunity to pitch themselves to investors gathered in the plenary assembly.

The economic sectors of reference are diverse and varied: from post-operative rehabilitation through wearable devices to the production of energy using transparent photovoltaic glass, and, again, software for tracking people and things in closed spaces and platforms for the design of customized sports cars and personalized motors for electric bicycles.