Startup and Innovation

In 2011, Fastweb launched an Open Innovation contest encouraging employees to propose business ideas to improve processes, products and business organization. The winning projects allowed the groups involved to participate in an Open Innovation & Entrepreneurship master's degree. The winning projects were analyzed by competent business teams, and by the board. Some of these have also become business products.

At the conclusion of the Master's in Open Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the 20 winners of the InnovAction contest proposed to CEO Alberto Calcagno a structured innovation management process (Innovation Funnel). The goal was to collect and evaluate in a structured way all the ideas that came “from the company to the company” in the form of “Bottom — Up” or “Top — Down” to improve processes, products and organization. As a complementary task, the Innovation Team had the task of spreading the culture of innovation, based on the experience of Open Innovation gained by Henry Chesbrough, the Father of Matter.

After three years of experience, the Innovation Team has transformed the method of collecting and evaluating ideas “from Company to Company”, creating a community of innovative employees, the InnovationLAB. The community, which exceeded the membership of more than half of the employees at the time, proposed ideas, promoted the dissemination of the culture of Open Innovation, supported the collection of ideas involving colleagues and partners outside the community and evaluated all the ideas collected with the method of “democratic voting”. Following the approval of the community, the most promising ideas were evaluated and, if they were of value for the business, were conveyed to the lines of business for development and commercialization. With the support of the InnovationLab, many ideas have been evaluated and implemented for improvements in internal processes, products and services that have accelerated the Company's Incremental Innovation. In the same period, the InnovationLab began to evaluate the first startups functional to the Fastweb business supported by the FastUp and FastUp School crowdfunding programs. The work of the InnovationLab has made it possible to increase awareness of the importance of Open Innovation programs and new design methodologies that open Innovation uses, such as the Agile methodology and Design Thinking to remain competitive on the market.

As part of the 5G trial in Milan, in 2017 Vodafone Italia launched “Action for 5G”, the call dedicated to startups, small and medium-sized enterprises and social enterprises for the development of innovative solutions based on 5G. Action for 5G supported companies in the various phases of the program, from design to prototype development to the release of the first product release and market validation. Vodafone has offered investments, consultancy and dedicated services, the Open Lab with Edge Computing 5G and a network of customers and partners with whom it can test the solution created in the field.

After almost 10 years of education, innovation has become a corporate cultural heritage, fueling a continuous funnel for receiving ideas. In the meantime, in line with the evolution of the Open Innovation approach, the collection of ideas has been conveyed in waves dedicated to specific themes, transforming the InnovationLab into an OpenInnovation Program. In collaboration with Cariplo Factory, two cycles of collection, analysis, evaluation, and prototyping of ideas from employees or startups in the Pre Seed and Seed investment phase were managed, with the aim of creating or investing in data driven and digital solutions. From the Open Innovation Waves, the AnyOps startup was also incubated, which developed a technological robot, which works alongside technicians specialized in technological sites, to optimize the maintenance of technological sites such as data centers and telecommunications centers.

Fastweb, has always had a vocation for sport and health, manifested through the choice of its testimonials and in 2021 it was the first corporate company to join WesportUP, the acceleration vehicle of Sport e Salute, CDP Ventures and WyLab, as a premium partner. The partnership saw the Fastweb team directly involved in scouting and supporting Startups in the field of Sport and Wellness, to identify potential synergies useful for the business which, in the two years of collaboration, has seen more than half of the 20 startups that have been accelerated by the program approved and supported, giving all the experience and know-how that a corporate company like Fastweb can offer to innovative startups that want to enter the Italian sports and health market.

Launched in 2024, InnovAction is the Vodafone Italia program that promotes a shared Open Innovation model, in which innovative startups and SMEs actively collaborate with Vodafone and with partner client companies throughout the development process. Market validation takes place in close synergy with 7 partner companies involved in the Healthcare & Wellbeing, Connected Mobility and Manufacturing & Logistics sectors, which provide skills, test environments and real scenarios. Thanks to Vodafone's advanced technologies — including 5G, Mobile Private Network, Edge Cloud and IoT — InnovAction accelerates the creation of scalable, sustainable and market-ready solutions.

In 2023, Fastweb NeXXt Ventures was founded, the Corporate Venturing in Joint Venture program with Founders Factory aimed at generating and investing in startups that create value in Italy, attracting them from the entire global ecosystem of innovative startups and entrepreneurs. Unlike Venture Capital, which have the sole purpose of financing startups in exchange for equity, Corporate Venturing adopts a much more pragmatic approach. Innovative strategic business needs for the corporate are explored. We identify the most promising startups and the innovative ideas that allow the creation of new business realities (venture studios) that meet these needs. The identified realities are supported, financing and providing strategic support, ensuring rapid and focused growth. It also supports their access to investment funds useful for 'scale up'. The goal is to invest in a portfolio of more than 30 business ideas operating in the Italian market and beyond.