Milan, 1 July 2025 – Shaping innovative ideas, nurturing them, and turning them into new businesses. Partitalia Horizon is born – Partitalia’s new innovation division, established with the goal of creating value through a structured Corporate Venture Builder.
Present on the B2B market for over twenty years, as a leader in the production and sale of smart cards, RFID tags and IoT solutions with advanced technologies, with more than 4,000 customers in Europe and worldwide and two locations – its headquarters in Lainate (Milan) and a branch in Campochiaro, Molise –, Partitalia is the first Italian SME to create an innovation-focused business unit based on a defined Corporate Venture Building model.
The path towards innovation
Innovation has always been part of the tech company’s DNA, supported by continuous process improvement and ongoing investment in R&D. Over the years, this commitment has led to collaborations with three of Italy’s most important research centres – Politecnico di Milano, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, and the University of Pisa – to develop solutions based on RFID, IoT, Artificial Intelligence, and Robotics.
Partitalia Horizon is the result of the vision shared by Luca Del Col Balletto, CEO of Partitalia, Beatrice Del Col Balletto, and Salvatore Rosania, expert in Finance for Innovation and Fintech, who envisioned giving a defined structure to this path, by creating a dynamic and growth-oriented ecosystem.
“Corporate Venture Builders are already widespread abroad,” says Luca Del Col Balletto. “With Partitalia Horizon, we aim to create a CVB model that is both scalable and replicable in Italy, attracting top talent and becoming an innovative SME in the truest sense of the word.”
From Venture Building to startup support
One of the core activities of Partitalia Horizon is Venture Building, where innovative ideas are transformed into businesses through a process that starts with identifying market opportunities. This includes a range of services – from team development to providing capital, mentorship, and infrastructure – to build, test, and launch the business into the market. A successful example is Innovation4Waste, which operates in waste management, developing IoT solutions to optimise collection, quality, and traceability of waste deliveries.
Another key area is startup support, with tailored interventions designed to accelerate growth: Go-to-Market strategies, strategic advisory, access to funding, legal and tax assistance, and guidance on public financing opportunities. Two projects in the Retail sector are already underway: MagiQeye, which develops ‘smart’ bags with RFID technology, to simplify and enhance the consumer shopping experience, and Genfied, an AI and video analytics-based in-store solution, to optimise operations in real time.
Strategic partnerships
Another essential component of Partitalia Horizon is collaboration with companies, universities, and other stakeholders to create new investment opportunities. One example is the long-standing partnership with Sensor ID, an engineering company based in Campochiaro (CB), established in 2013, which designs and develops RFID readers and IoT solutions for traceability and industrial automation. And, again, the most recent agreement with WiBioCard, a leading company offering smart cards with integrated biometric sensors for unique personal identification.
