Start Cup Tuscany is a competition that rewards the best entrepreneurial initiatives with high technological content coming from the research community, and offers the possibility to develop an idea into business by providing support to training activities, business plan production, and prize money. The competition is organized by Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa in collaboration with other Tuscan Universities and the support from Tuscany Region. Start Cup Tuscany represents the regional phase of the National Award for Innovation, which is the most important Italian competition for business projects developed by students and researchers in academia.
In 2009, Lead Discovery Siena participated to the competition as an entrepreneurial idea to be developed into a reality and won the first prize of Stat Cup Toscana. LDS presented a business plan about the constitution of an academic spin off providing research services for drug discovery, also aimed at identifying, developing and patenting new drugs, their synthesis and the computational models used for their design.
The idea was considered to be original, feasible, ambitious, with great potentialities in terms of development with respect to the relevant market area, and to be supported by a competent and appropriate management team. The overall plan was appropriately presented and supported.
http://startcup.ilonova.eu/it/albo-doro