Italy’s e-commerce for beauty and cosmetics products Abiby raised 1.5 million euros from Alberto Genovese (the chairman of the startup and founder Facile.it, Prima Assicurazioni, and brumbrum), venture capital funds and business angels (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Abiby will invest such proceeds in its organic development. In January 2018, Mario Parteli, and Luca Della Croce founded Abiby.
JustMary, the startup that delivers legal cannabis at home when tobacconists are closed, raised 148k euros through an equity crowdfunding campaign on Crowdfundme (see here a previous post byBeBeez). Even though the company raised far more than its 60,000 euros target, the campaign is not yet closed. JustMary has a daily turnover of 600 euros, and Matteo Moretti is its founder and ceo.
Antares, the financial investments holding that belongs to Alessandro Calligaris, the chairman of the eponymous furniture producer, invested in Propensione, the fintech pension startup that former executives of Gruppo Generali founded with the support of Palladio Finanziaria Holding (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Antares subscribed a capital increase of Propensione together with the other shareholders of the company. Shareholders appointed Dario Scrosoppi as chairman of the board, and as new board members Simone Mocchiutti (cfo of Antares), Alfredo Scotti, and Giovanni Dembech.Furhter board members are Giorgio Drago; Giancarlo Scotti; Luigi de Puppi; Angelo Venchiarutti; and Carmen Silvestri.
Thomas Kusstatscher, a senior advisor of the EIB, said that the European Investment Fund invested 30 million euros in Astra Venture, a new Italian fund with a focus on the space economy that ASI (the Italian space agency) and Fondazione E. Amaldi promoted and Primomiglio sgris managing.The news came out during a conference in Milan organized byInnovAgorà, about technology transfer and venture capital in Italy (see here a previous post by BeBeez). EIF and the Italy national development agency, Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, already invested 160 million euros in technology transfer funds through their ITATech platform: in Progress Tech Transfer; in Vertis Venture 3 Technology Transfer by Vertis sgr; in the biotech fund launched by French venture capital firm Sofinnova, with the advisory of the biomedic charity Telethon; and in Poli360, a fund launched by 360 Capital Partners to support technology innovation produced byPolitecnico di Milano’s researchers.
Italian innovation platform B2B Gellify and Industrio Ventures, a business accelerator and boutique investor with a focus on startup hardware, signed a partnership for the sector of industry 4.0 (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Four factors create synergies between the companies: expertise areas (hardware for Industrio Ventures; digital and analytics for Gellify); industrial districts; investment integration of the respective investments of the firms (Industrio Ventures supports hardware early stage startups, while Gellify targets software startups for later rounds); corporate venture capital.
