Italian venture capital firms, business angels and startups are not yet in holiday mood.
According to a survey of Italian Business Angel Network (Iban), last year business angels invested 26.6 million of euros up 10% from 2016 (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Main sectors of interest to Angels are Ict (33%), e-commerce (10%), and services (9%) with an average ticket of an average of 0.227 million for startup businesses based in the North of Italy (82%). Business Angels prefer to invest through networks or club deals in companies operating in a market with strong growth potential (27%); a good management team (24%), or businesses with a strong social impact (19%). The investment period lasts on average five years. According to the Crowdinvesting Observatory led by Giancarlo Giudici, of Milan’s Polytechnic University, business angels have started also using crowdfunding platforms for their investments. However, Paolo Anselmo, chairman of Iban, said that the volume of investments in Italy is still far lower than elsewhere in Central and Western Europe.
Roberto Ferrari, the former coo of CheBanca! (part of Mediobanca) and current chief digital and innovation officer of Mediobanca, is the new chairman of ClubDealOnline, the equity crowdfunding that ceo Antonio Chiarello founded as a way to liaise high net worth individual and family offices with startups (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Further board members of ClubDealOnline are Simone Cimminelli, ceo of iStarter, Fabrizio D’Aloia, the founder of Microgame, and Enrico Deluchi, the former chairman of Canon Italia. Ferrari said that ClubDealOnline will also expand its activities to SMEs.
Italian entrepreneur, startup, and venture capital investor Fabio Cannavale received from Turin based investor network Club degli degli Investitori, the award Premio Business Angel 2018 (see here aprevious post by BeBeez). Kpmg and Unicredit supported the event that included in its list of participantsAifi, Angel Partner Group, BacktoWork24, Ban Florence, Endeavor, Iban, iStarter, Italia Startup, Ogr, School of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and Unicredit Start Lab. Cannavale is the ceo ofLastminute Group and founder of Boost Heroes, a financial investment firm that belongs to further 50 co-founders.
Vertis Venture 3 Tech Transfer managed by Vertis sgr invested in Toothpic, a startup spin-off of Turin’s Polytechnic Incubator I3P that operates in the field of authentication processes (see here a previous post by BeBeez). The fund is using capital injected by ITAtech, the investment platform for science and tech projects that belongs to European Investment Fund (EIF) and Cassa Depositi e Prestiti. Sources said to BeBeez that the investment is an injection of seed capital worth 0.3 million euro. Giulio Coluccia, is the ceo of the company that four University Professors and researchers founded in late 2016.
