Finanza alternativa per le pmi in Italia, a report of Milan Polytechnic University (PoliMi) that will be presented next Nov 12th in Milan, says that in the last two years, startup companies based in Italy or in which at least 50% of team members are Italian, raised almost 150 million of US dollars through 16 successful ICOs (see here a previous post by BeBeez). EdiBeez, the publisher of BeBeez, is the media partner of PoliMi’s Observatory on Crowdinvesting. These 16 projects raised 28.5 million in 2017 and 121.3 million in 2018.
The top fundraisers are:
- Eidoo (27 million), the provider of an integrated platform for managing the whole value chain of cryptocurrencies: fundraising, purchase of goods and services, and payments.
- Thrive (26 million), a blockchain-based marketplace for buying and selling advertising. Registered users receive payments for data sharing and for reviewing the quality of each website in the ecosystem.
- Friendz (18.1 million), a platform that rewards with major brands coupons those registered users that share pictures of selected products. Friendz carries on three different kind of campaigns.
- AidCoin (15.8 million) a blockchain-based project for social impact finance in support of charities.
Lendix, the European fintech platform that provides loans to SMEs has been rebranded as October (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Sergio Zocchi heads the Italian operations of the company that in the last 18 months supported 47 projects through the issuance of loans for 24.1 million euros. In France, Spain and Italy, October issued 488 loans amounting to 219 million. By the end of 2019, October will start to operate in The Netherlands and Germany. October also raised 200 million for a fund that supports SMEs together with retail investors. The European Investment Fund, CIR, CNP Assurances, Eiffel IM, Groupama, Zencap AM, Matmut and Decaux Frères Investissements are some of the venture capital and financial investors that invested in October.
