Created by the Politecnico di Milano and other, major Founder Members in 2003, the Fondazione Politecnico di Milano was set up to be a driver of development of the socio-economic context, by pursuing objectives and conducting activities instrumental to the mission of the third-level institution. The Fondazione owes its existence to an amendment to Italy's 2001 Finance Act, which allows universities to set up foundations that make their relationship with the outside world more effective and efficient.
The Fondazione continues the spirit of the original Fondazione Politecnica Italiana, founded in 1926 by Giacinto Motta, a distinguished professor and one of the first to grasp the needs, purposes and functions of the Milanese third-level institution.
Right from the start the Fondazione Politecnico showed particular interest in SMEs: in 2005 it took control of the Consorzio Politecnico Innovazione, today Alintec Scarl, a technological innovation company created on 1 January 2008 from the merger of Politecnico Innovazione and Assotec Scarl. As well as the Fondazione, the shareholders are Assolombarda and the Milan Chamber of Commerce.
In 2006 the Fondazione took over, from the Politecnico di Milano, the minority holding in Alice Lab Netherlands N.V. and since 2008 it has had a holding in ComoNExT, a company that manages the Science and Technology Park in Lomazzo.
On 1 October 2007 the Fondazione took over the management of the Acceleratore d'Impresa del Politecnico di Milano, a university business incubator unit set up in 2000 to support the development of innovative businesses and to offer start-ups the infrastructures and services they need to grow. Today the Acceleratore d'Impresa includes 18 incubated companies, and has three sites: Milano, Como and Lecco.
Since 1 January 2009 the Fondazione has also managed PoliCom (POLItecnico Comunicazioni Ottiche Milano) an optical communications company set up to continue the activities of CoreCom (an optical communications consortium of the Politecnico di Milano and Pirelli Cavi). PoliCom is a Centre of the Faculty of Electronics and Information of the Politecnico di Milano, and was created to consolidate, coordinate and promote the Faculty's expertise in the area of photonics by developing optical communications with an integrated, multidisciplinary approach.