The phenomenon of academic spin-off in Italy grew considerably from early 2000s. While the processes of spin-off creation have been widely studied, also about the Italian context, our knowledge about the nature of scientists that creates these firms remains rather scarce. In particular there are no investigations on the characteristics of these scientists referred to Italy. This work aims at moving a first step toward filling this gap. More specifically we focus on two main aspects characterising the nature of these scientists: their scientific sector and their academic role. The analysis conducted here only seeks to offer a descriptive contribution about the nature of these scientists, and therefore it contributes to delineate the academic spin-off phenomenon in Italy.