The financial community is asking the Italian Government to channel private banking savings to the European Long-Term Investment Funds (ELTIFs), which in turn inject resources in venture capital funds (See here a previous post by BeBeez). AssoFintech, the Italian association of Fintech companies that Fabio Brambilla chairs, is one of the promoters of this change. However, even though discussions towards this end just begun, Italian venture capital funds and angel investors show a robust activity.
Satispay, an Italian startup which has developed a mobile payment system, closed a 15 million euros investment round on the ground of a post money valuation of 115 million, after having raised a first 10 million euros tranche in July (see here a previous post by BeBeez). The fintech scaleup closed the final tranche of the capital increase with the support of Iccrea Banca and Banca di Piacenza. The first tranche was instead founded by Copper Street Capital, Endeavor Catalyst, Greyhound Capital, Banca Valsabbina, Sparkasse, and Club degli Investitori di Torino. So since inception of its activity the scaleup has been raising a total of 42 million from investors. Alberto Dalmasso, Dario Brignone, and Samuele Pinta founded Satispay.
Credimi, the Italian invoice financing platform, raised 10 million of euros from Italian venture capital firms United Ventures and Vertis (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Ignazio Rocco di Torrepadula, a former senior partner of BCG, founded the company in 2015 with a team of developers and since then had raised 8 million euros in investment rounds. So including this new round, the total capital raised reached 18 million euros. Since the beginning of its activities in September 2016, Credimi issued financing for 150 million, but has a power fire of 300 million.
Force Manager, the Spanish scaleup that raised 15.7 million of US dollars from venture capital firms, acquired Sellf, an Italian provider of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tools (see here a previous post byBeBeez). Diego Pizzocaro is the ceo and founder of the target company and will reinvest in Force Manager together with Club Italia Investimenti 2, P101 sgr, Indaco Venture Partners and H-Farm, the firms that provided early stage support to Sellf. Oscar Macià, the ceo and co-founder of Force Manager, will be the chairman of the merged company. Axa Strategic Ventures, Nauta Capital, Sabadell Venture Capital, SIE, and Histemi Inversiones injected 12 million of US Dollars in Force Manager’s last round of investment.
SkinLabo, an Italia digital brand for cosmetics, raised 0.5 million of euros from several business angels (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Bespoke members of the Italian financial community and sector entrepreneurs invested in SkinLabo. The list of Angels includes Walter Ricciotti, founder and ceo of Italian private equity firm Quadrivio Group (he sold his managing company to Green Arrow Capital but kept ownership of the brand Quadrivio and just opened a new firm with the name), and Stefano Gaetani, previously ceo of Labotatorie Bioderma -Naos Group and former top executive of the cosmetic unit of LVMH Italia. Since October 2016, SkinLabo raised 1.1 million euros and will invest such resources in consolidating its business in Italy and abroad. The company aims to double its monthly turnover which is currently of 0.2 million in view of grabbing a 2% share of the online skincare market and double the number of active clients by 2019. Angelo Muratore and Carlo Tafuri, which is also coo and owner of online retailer Brandsdistribution.com, founded SkinLabo.
Italian credit score and rating agency Crif acquired 10% of invoice trading platform Workinvoice in a dedicated capital increase and launched CribisCash (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Matteo Tarroni, Ettore Decio, and Fabio Bolognini, founded Workinvoice in 2013 and raised 1.6 million of euros from its shareholders (65%), the Pacorini family (7.9%), few business angels and Maurizio Cereda (2%), a former top banker of Mediobanca that is currently working as advisor for the company together with Roberto Nicastro. Workinvoice runs auctions of invoices of private companies that institutional investors like Factor@Work, Advanced Global Capital and Method Investments buy. Once purchased the credits, these firms securitise them and sell the portfolios to further institutional investors.
