In Italy, the vitality of early-stage investors, such as angel & incubators and venture capitalists, is still remarkable. New actors came on stage. This is the news roundup for last week.
Bio4Dreams, the first Italian bio-sciences focused incubator backed only by private investors, is to start its activity on February the 22nd, Thursday (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Pietro Conti and Fabio Bianco will respectively be the firm’s chief executive officer and scientific director. Bio4Dreams was born last year in September and has in its portfolio 3 innovative startups, 12 entrepreneurial projects which are in their development stage, and a pipeline of a further 5 startups that will start their activity this year. Bio4Dreams aims to partner with Universities, research centres and pharma, biotech and medical devices companies, as well as with researchers and scientists that want to launch their startup. For the selected projects, the Milan-based firm will implement an acceleration program of 6 months and an incubation pattern of 2-3 years. Bio4Dreams will open other branches in an Openzone science park in Bresso, Milan area; in the biotech area of Villa Guardia (Como), one in Trento at HIT (Hub Innovazione Trentino), where it will produce synergies with CIBIO (Centre for Integrative Biology). Bio4Dreams has also signed an industrial partnership with IBM Italia. The company will also open a branch in California at the San Diego Labs
Moovenda, an Italian food delivery startup active in Rome, Viterbo, Naples, Turin and Cagliari, raised from private investors an amount of one million of euros for a pre-money enterprise value of 7.5 million of euros, said Simone Ridolfi, the company’s founder (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Ciro Immobile, the Italian international footballer that plays for listed Serie A team SS Lazio is one of the investors. Jacopo Paoletti, is the Cmo of Moovenda and invested 75k euros in the company. A further shareholder is Club Degli Acceleratori, which invested 535k euros in different rounds. Last year in January, Movenda acquired Delivery Sardinia for 250k euros.
Soulkitchen srl, an Italian startup that produces and distributes ready meals and semifinished food products, raised a first-round investment worth an undisclosed amount from Tan Food srl, MM Real Estate srl, and IPgest, a venture capital firm that belongs to Innogest sgr (see here a previous post by BeBeez). IPGest is a fund that has resources of 40.9 million of euros that was born in 2013 and in which the Italian Cabinet for economic development invested 20 million of euros. The firm acquires majorities or minorities of startups or innovative projects of SMEs, or provides quasi-equity financing.
