Innocenzo Cipolletta, AIFI’s chairman, said that the Italian private equity and venture cpaital association is holding talks with the Italian Government for developing further the venture capital industry (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Actually the Italian Government seems to be quite interested at the issue as the Italian Ministry for Economic Development, Luigi Di Maio, had said that the Italian Government aims to create a public bank to support investments in Italian SMEs and launch a national venture capital fund (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Di Maio said that he would like to create an investment company of the like of Bpi France.
German tourism company TUI Group acquired Milan-based scaleup Musement (see here a previous post by BeBeez). The target is a web platform for booking travels and tickets for events and venues that Alessandro Petazzi, Fabio Zecchini, Claudio Bellinzona, and Paolo Giulini founded, and in which invested Micheli Associati, the financial holding of the eponymous family, and Italian venture capital firms P101 and Italian Angels for Growth. Last year Musement acquired Triposo, a Dutch online provider of travel contents that belonged to financial firm InterWest Partners. TUI will integrate Musement with TUI Destination Experiences, its Tours & Activities unit that operates in 49 countries in the world. The company has bureaus in Barcelona, London, New York, and Dubai. Musement raised financing worth 18 million of US Dollars (15 million of euros) since its foundation. Investors had been venture capital firms 360 Capital Partners, P101, Micheli Associati and business angels from IAG network.
