Why startups fail, and what we do so that ours does not.

Already validated problems

We do not start from a brilliant idea, but from a problem someone has been suffering for years. Professionals in the sector point it out; the Volcano system verifies that it really exists, that it has a technological nature that can be tackled and that there is a market willing to pay for solving it. Only problems that pass this validation move on to the technical and economic feasibility study, and only then is the startup born. It is the direct answer to risk 01 and risk 02: it is eliminated before anything is built.

Public funds

Between 45% and 100% of research costs are covered by public funding, depending on the call and the instrument; on average, 70%. In industrialisation, coverage reaches up to 50%. It is capital that absorbs financial risk before a single private euro comes in, and it dilutes nobody. For every private euro, Volcano typically mobilises between 3 and 4 euros by combining grants, tax credits and subsidised financing. It is the answer to risk 06: much of the capital burned in the most critical phases is not private capital.

With one condition almost never stated, and which explains our whole architecture: national and European calls rarely pay for the beginning. They reward whoever has already arrived, and the usual threshold is around TRL5. Before that point, public money simply is not there. That is why the journey is funded in stretches: up to TRL2 we pay, from TRL2 to TRL5 the capital of the Tax Lease tax investors comes in, and only from TRL5 onwards can public calls be added. It is developed in how the research is paid for.

Independent validation

Three levels of validation (automatic, experimental and third-party) culminate in certification by a body accredited by ENAC and in the Ministry's Binding Reasoned Report, binding on the Tax Agency as to the project's classification. Nobody inside Volcano certifies their own work: the proof that something works is always provided by someone with no stake in the benefit. It is the answer to risk 03 and risk 04: technical quality is measured, not declared.

A tax floor: the Tax Lease

With the Tax Lease, the first return (the tax one) is certain, quantifiable in advance and structurally independent of the project's commercial success: it arises through tax transparency in the investor's own hands, it does not depend on the startup selling. It puts a floor under the operation before the industrial result is even decided. How it works, in detail →

The intellectual property, safe

The base IP remains with whoever brought it, under licence. The IP the project builds is born in the project vehicle and ends up entirely in the startup, awarded at an expert value anchored to cost before any act of commercialisation. If the project is interrupted, the knowledge does not sink with it: the partial intellectual property is awarded with priority for the private investor, and a documented prototype can be sold or licensed to a third party. It is the answer to what no insurance covers: the total loss of the intangible asset. How it works, in the convertible note.

Thirty years of the founders' experience, already tested

Risk 05 (the lack of management, marketing, legal, industrial or commercial capabilities) is the one that most quietly buries technically sound projects. This is where the founding team's track record weighs: thirty years developing innovation for multinationals, industrial groups and public administrations, with tailored solutions chosen, on specific projects, over far larger organisations. It is the same tailor's logic Volcano applies to every startup: identify a specific market need and answer it with a suit made to measure, something large organisations do not tailor.

It is not theoretical advisory experience: it is the experience of having built, delivered and competed, in technology and in business management, inside organisations that afterwards had to account for real results. The full track record →