OXA Impresa Sociale is the special purpose company that was set up by the Temporary Business Association (Accapiù Srl, Arci Milano, Avanzi Srl, Esterni, Make a Cube Srl) to create the BASE project inside the “ex Ansaldo” properties in via Tortona in Milan under concession of the Municipality of Milan. BASE is a project for innovation and cultural contamination among Art, Creativity, Enterprise, Technology and Welfare, whose activities cover a very wide range of themes involving all creative and cultural industries, social innovation, collaborative economy, green, digital, agri-food sectors, and forms of innovation that are even able to cross and qualify very traditional sectors of the economy. The events and activities hosted at BASE are often free of charge or low-cost, with the aim of ensuring maximum diffusion of the topics presented.
Inside the building – which covers almost 12,000 sq.m (6,000 of which were released in 2018) over 4 floors – OXA offers spaces of different sizes (for events such as conferences, meetings, seminars, exhibitions and fairs, and concerts); workshops and residences for artists, and temporary residential services; workstations; training and orientation initiatives; incubation programs for start-ups; and restaurant and cafeteria services. Music, digital manufacturing, and crafts labs are in the start-up phase.
Through its investment of €700,000 in equity in Oxa Impresa Sociale, Fondazione Social Venture Giordano Dell’Amore (“FSVGDA”) investing, has started the first trial in Italy of an innovative financing structure called “Impact Grant” which, through the adoption of specific legal and contractual instruments, enables a company that is the beneficiary of an investment to transform part of it into a grant, provided it achieves pre-agreed social impact objectives.