Fondazione Enea Tech will manage a 500 million euros fund for the transfer of technology that has the support of the Italian Government (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Fondazione Enea Tech belongs to Enea, the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development.
On 28 August, Friday, the Italian Secretary for economic development Stefano Patuanelli announced the allocation of 200 million euros for supporting Italian innovative SMEs and startups (See here a previous post by BeBeez). Such resources will be part of the Italian National Fund for Innovation that may issue up to 1 million and up to 4 times the resources that private investors poured in the target company.
Panakes Partners sgr aims to raise 120 million euros for its second medtech fund (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Alessio Beverina, Fabrizio Landi and Diana Saraceni are Panakes managing partners, while Francesco Panfilo is the chairman. The fund recently joined a 20 million investment round that InnovHeart, a medtech startup launched. InnovHeart also attracted  resources from Genextra, Cdp Venture Capital, and Indaco Venture Partners (See here a previous post by BeBeez). Giovanni Righinifounded InnovHeart in 2015.
The project of the new mega-round for the Italian fintech Satispay could finally see the light (see here a previous post by BeBeez). A 50 million euro round had been firstly  announced in July 2018 by the co-founder and ceo Alberto Dalmasso who, on the occasion of the closing of the first tranche of the previous round, had anticipated that the fintech company would return to investors for a subsequent 50 million round in 2019.  Satispay then closed that round in September 2018 for a total of 15 million euros with a post money valuation of 115 million. Times  for the next round, however, were longer than expected and the operation was only launched last December. After that, the Covid-19 lockdown suspended the fundraising, which only recently resumed, bringing the fundraising closing estimate to January 2021. After the new round, the post-money valuation of Satispay would rise to 180 million euros. Milan-listed media group Mediaset could also participate in the round with a media for equity agreement, as the group usually does through its corporate venture capital Ad4Ventures. In the meantime, however, it became known that Mediaset has already entered Satispay’s capital, albeit with a very small stake through its subsidiary Reti Televisive Italiane (Rti).
Milan listed venture capital fund LVenture Group (LVG) signed a partnership with Chinastone Group (CSG), management consulting giant (See here a previous post by BeBeez). CSG could increase its stake in LVG that aims to boost the expansion of its portfolio companies on the Chinese market and internationally. In 2019, venture capital investment in China amounted to above 33 billion US Dollars.
Reaxing, an innovative midmarket company for the sport equipment sector, sold a 7.15% stake to Euronext-listed Innovative-RFK (i-RFK) (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Gionata D’Alesio and Roberto Frassinelli founded Reaxing in 2016 when they invested 2.5 million euros of their own resources. In September 2017, the company received a financing facility of above 3 million from a pool of Italian banks that Unicredit led.
Euregio Plus (fka PensPlan Invest), a financial firm that belongs to the Municipalities of Bolzano and Trento and to Pensplan Centrum, aims to launch a venture capital fund between the end of 2020 and early 2021 (see here a previous post by BeBeez). The vehicle’s fundraising target amounts to 50 million euros to invest in local innovative SMEs and startups. Sergio Lovecchio, the coo of Euregio Plus said. The director explained that the fund will pour 0.2 – 2 million in each asset for supporting the extension stage of the target. The fund may increase the size of its investments for later stages of the targets’ life.
In 2Q20, the turmoil due to the COVID-19 emergency had a lower than expected impact on the valuations of of European startups, said the European VC Valutation Report for Apri-June 2020 by PitchBook (see here a previous post by BeBeez). However, valuations may fluctuate further in 2H20. PitchBook expects rapid-growth startups to focus on exits, while other firms will have a wait and see attitude.
On 14 September 2019 the Payment Services Directive (PSD2) became completely active in European countries and paved the way to the open banking. Now, one year after that the next step is the open finance (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Here are all most recent agreements in Italy by startups and other fintech players towards open finance.
The Global Fintech Index of Findexable and StartupBlink the Italian ecosystem for fintech ranked Italy as the 24th country and Milan as the è 47th (16th in Europe) (see here a previous post by BeBeez). The Italian startup ecosystem is instead 25th in the global table and 15th in Europe, while Milan is 62nd in the world and 14th in Europe according to Startup Ecosystem Rankings 2020 by StartupBlink published last June.
Digital Rock Holding, the ecosystem for cryptocurrencies, aims to raise 750k euros through an equity crowdfunding campaign on Opstart (see here a previous post by BeBeez). The campaign started in July and will end at the end of September. The company already raised more than 0.53 million on the ground of a pre-money value of 13.5 million. Digital Rock aims to sell a 5-10% stake for a target of 0.75 -1.5 million. The least investment ticket is of 503,40 euros. The company will invest such proceeds in its organic development and international expansion.
Cdp Venture Capital – Fondo Nazionale Innovazione (FNI) will invest 8 million euros in 50 startups through the programm AccerORA! (see here a previous post by BeBeez). The programme will support companies that are facing the consequences of the coronavirus. Fondo Acceleratori will manage the investments and Fondo Italia Venture will coinvest in startups based in the South of Italy. Every investment ticket will be of up to 0.3 million.
Earlier in July, A2A Horizon, the corporate venture capital of Milan-listed multiutility A2A, invested in London’s computer vision startup Greyparrot (See here a previous post by BeBeez). A2A Horizon has resources of 70 million euros and signed a partnership with 360 Capital, Milan Polytechnic University and Poli360 (a joint venture that 360 Capital signed with Milan Polytechnic). Ambarish Mitra, Marco Paladini, Mikela Eskenazi, and Nikola Sivacki founded Greyparrot in 2019. The company raised 1.1 million British Pounds through a pre-seed and 2.8 million through a seed in May 2020
Earlier in August, Var Group acquired 10% of Apio (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Alessandro Chelli and Lorenzo Di Berardino founded Apio in 2014. The company has sales of 0.294 million euros with an ebitda of minus 89,000 euros. Var Group belongs to Milan-listed Gruppo Sesa of which Tamburi Investment Partners, a Milan-listed investment and merchant bank, owns 20.64%.
Sealence, an Italia startup italiana that developed the electric jet DeepSpeed, issed a 0.5 million euros minibond (see here a previous post by BeBeez). William Gobbo, the ceo of Sealance, said to CrowdfundingBuzz that 30 investors in the company subscribed the issuance with a ticket of at least 1,000 euros. The company set an initial target of 0.1 million. The first 20 subscribers will get a 15% discount on the company’s next capital increase, while the subsequent 10 investors will get a 10% reduction. In 2019, Sealence cash amounted to 0.4 million with credits for 2 million.
ArteOlio Società Agricola, a portfolio company of VERTEQ Capital, received from Banco Bpm mid and long-term credit lines of 5.85 million euros for supporting the company’s development plans (see here a previous post by BeBeez). In September 2019, Verteq Capital subscribed a 5.5 million capital increased of ArteOlio that chairman Augusto Lippi and ceo Riccardo Schiatti subscribed.
The scaleup D-Orbit received a financing facility of 15 million euros from the European Investment Bank (see here a previous post by BeBeez). The company will invest such proceeds in R&D. Luca Rossettini and Renato Panesi founded the company in 2011. D-Orbit has sales in the region of 4 million.
Asset Service, a wholesale company for air time, launched a crowdfunding campaign for raising 500k euros onWeAreStarting (see here a previous post by BeBeez). The company will invest such proceeds in acquiring a competitor by 2021. Asset Service was born in 2018, when Alessio Castronovo and Daniele Frontini founded it. Alessia Tartaglia, Maurizio Frontini, Federico Mini, Luca Vatteroni, Susanna Duina, Nicola Di Marzio, Ivan Bellin, and Giovanni Ananiainvested in the firm. Asset Service has sales of 0.31 million and profits of 1,859 euros.
