by Stefania Peveraro
BeBeez‘s editor-in-chief di BeBeez and EdiBeez‘s founder and chairman
Dear BeBeez’s readers,
this is a very special day for me, for my partners and for the whole team of EdiBeez srl, the only Italian publisher with a distinctive focus on private markets and a recognized leader on the online information market in the private equity sectors, venture capital, crowdinvesting, private debt, distressed assets and private real estate. In fact, I am really happy to inform you that in less than one month from launch (see here a previous article by BeBeez), our company has closed its first round of capital raising from new investors on the CrowFundMe equity crowdfunding platform, reaching the maximum target 400k euros, therefore equal to 23.5% of the post-money capital (see the press release here).
I was optimistic about the result of our campaign, because there has never been a lack of appreciation for what we are doing. But I wasn’t expecting such an enthusiastic response, so much so that we could close our first round of investment well in advance of the campaign deadline, scheduled for next June 6th. I sincerely thank all our investors, who are in most cases also our readers and who will now accompany us in our next phase of development.
The round, which now brings EdiBeez to a post-money valuation of 1.7 million euros, was led by Smart Capital spa, a permanent capital holding company with a focus on listed Italian small and medium-sized companies, in the pre-ipo phase or potentially interested in going public, born at the beginning of 2021 on the initiative of Andrea Costantini, Andrea Faraggiana and the Agrati family, the latter owner of the homonymous group, world leader in fastening systems for auto components. Smart Capital is now a club involving over 20 families of entrepreneurs who want to invest time and resources in successful business projects in the sectors of Italian excellence. Smart Capital seeks investment opportunities in leading companies in market niches, with a management of proven ability and sustainable development plans. The founder, managing partner and president of Smart Capital, Andrea Costantini, who is also the executive vice-president of Agrati Group, will be co-opted to the board of directors of EdiBeez for the next two terms, in line with the aim of supporting the company in the its further phase of growth.
The campaign was joined by some well-known names in the world of finance, both personally and through investment vehicles. In particular: Giuseppe Vegas, former president of Consob, now a professor at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Milan and an active investor in startups and scaleups; Riv Capital, an investment company founded by the former Lehman Brothers, Roberto Rivera; WRM Group, an investment holding company specializing in private equity, credit, special situations and real estate of the financier Raffaele Mincione; VERTEQ Capital, a holding specialized in private equity investments, founded by Ennio Valerio Boccardi; Fermo Marelli, Co-Head of Alternative Credit Azimut Capital Management sgr; Maurizio Ria, founder and managing partner of the Duke & Kay turnaround advisory firm, who invested through his DKBD srl; Norman Pepe, founder of the law firm iLS (London); Domenico Di Luccia, founder of Di Luccia & Partners Executive Search; ACDNÂ srl,, the investment vehicle of Alessandro Della Nina, vice president of Oaktree Capital Management in London, and Arturo Casale, entrepreneur of the Milanese restaurant business; Fabio Malerba, business angel, board member of IBAN (Italian Business Angel Network) and with a long track record in the insurance brokerage sector; Michele Novelli, partner of Milan-listed incubator Digital Magics and investor also on a personal level in various fintech startups; and various other entrepreneurs, founders of successful startups and managers of the world of finance. I thank them all very much for the trust.
The new investors will join the share capital of EdiBeez as well as me and the co-founders Fabio Allegreni (ceo and editorial director of Crowdfunding Buzz), Antonella Negri Clementi (director, founder of the strategic consulting firm Global Strategy), Roberto Spada (founder of the well-known Milanese accounting firm Spada Partners) and Lorenza Spriano (director, founder of the communication company Spriano Communication).
The new resources will be used to strengthen the team of journalists involved in the drafting of BeBeez and CrowdfundingBuzz and the analyst team of BeBeez Private Data, the BeBeez private capital database, which monitors all the Italian companies in the portfolio of private equity investors, venture capital and private debt, understood in a broad sense: not only, therefore, structured investment funds, but also holding companies, club deals, SPACs, business angels and securitization veichles. Infact it’s not a case that thanks to BeBeez Private Data, EdiBeez has been classified as an innovative SME’s in the register of the Milan Chamber of Commerce, which means that our investors will be eligible for special fiscal incentives.
The capital raised will also go to strengthen EdiBeez’s commercial structure and to finance a marketing campaign in Italy and abroad, an activity which had never been undertaken until now. All the growth carried out by EdiBeez up to now, in fact, was due to word of mouth and excellent indexing on Google, thanks to the recognized quality of the content produced. Finally, the capital raised will be used to support further software developments of the online platforms both on the editorial front and on the database front.
With Fabio Allegreni, ceo of EdiBeez, with a solid background in the field of consulting for startups in the search for capital on equity crowdfunding platforms, we have identified a growth objective for the next 4-6 years that we believe is absolutely reasonable, if we consider the flywheel that will be created thanks to the resources just raised. I also report Fabio’s thanks to all the investors who believed in the project, starting with the Smart Capital team, with whom we begin today a shared development path that, we are sure, will bring EdiBeez to make an important dimensional jump.
Thanks to Il Sole 24 Ore for writing about us today!
To learn more about our industrial plan:
See here the video of our investors’ presentation od April 11th 2022
See here the video of my 19th April 2022 tv interview by Carla Signorile
on Class CNBC Linea Mercati .
We talk of the activism of the large international private equity funds on Italian companies
(from TIM to Atlantia to Milan) but also of our equity crowdfunding campaign
