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Axelera AI, a Dutch scaleup that ceo Fabrizio del Maffeo and cto Evangelos Eleftheriou founded, received a grant of 61.6 million euros from EuroHPC (European High Performance Computing) Joint Undertaking and from the member countries of Digital Autonomy with RISC-V for Europe (DARE) Project (see here a previous post by BeBeez). EuroHPC is a vehicle that the EU countries and private partners launched for the development of a world-class supercomputing ecosystem in Europe. In the last three years, Axelera AI raised 200 million US Dollars.
Relief, a medtech spin-off of Istituto di BioRobotica della Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna di Pisa, attracted an undisclosed amount of resources from Panakès Partners (lead investor), Exor Ventures, Club degli Investitori – Simon Fiduciaria, business angels, and Santex (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Relief now belongs to Santex (20.2%), Tommaso Mazzocchi (founder – 18.6%), Panakes Partners (15.4%), Gioia Lucarini (ceo – 10.5%), Leonardo Marziale (9.2%), Leonardo Ricotti (9.2%), and further minority shareholders. The company will invest such resources in its organic growth. Alessio Beverina is a managing partner of Panakes Partners. Arianna Floris is a senior analyst of Club degli Investitori. Alessandra Castiglioni is the chairwoman of Santex.
Klear Finance, a startup for the AI-based asset management, raised pre-seed resources of one million euros in SAFE equity facilities and banking debt (see here a previous post by BeBeez) Federico Quarato, Marco Alò and Massimo Dell’Erba founded the company in 2024. Paolo Federici, the former market Italian head of UBS Global Wealth Management and chairman of UBS Fiduciaria, joined Klear later. The company will invest such resources in its organic growth and proprietary technology.
Valuematic, a B2B provider of corporate decision making tools, raised 0.85 million euros from Tech4Planet – CDP Venture Capital, Progress Tech Transfer and Fondo Toscana Next (a vehicle in which also invested Fondazione CR Firenze, Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Lucca, Fondazione Caript, and Fondazione Monte dei Paschi di Siena) (see here a previous post by BeBeez). The company will invest such resources in its proprietary technology. Nicola Lattanzi (ceo) and Mirco Tribastone (cto) head Valuematic that appointed Andrea Ragnetti as chairman of the board and Lorenzo Farina for the marketing department. Claudia Pingue is a senior partner and head of Technology Transfer – Cdp Venture Capital.
Northern Light Composites (nicomp), a developer of recyclable composites to solve end-of-life fibreglass problem, said it attracted more than 0.6 million euros from lead investor Samer & Co Shipping and Zero – CDP Venture Capital, a vehicle that Zest manages (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Such resources will finance the startup’s organic growth. Fabio Bignolini, Andrea Paduano and Piernicola Paoletti founded nicomp in 2020. In 2024, the company received a 0.504 financing facility from Invitalia Smart&Start.
Cobo, a Brixia-based provider of solutions and integrated systems for the off-highway vehicle market, acquired Italian startup Feelera, a firm that operates in the sector of production chains tracking services (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Pirola Pennuto Zei & associati assisted Cobo. Andersen Italia advised Feleera which previously belonged to co-founders Gianluca Mazza and Giorgio Marini. Cobo, a company of the Linetti Family, has sales of 313.5 million euros, an ebitda of 18.5 million and net debt of 41.3 million.
US pre-seed investor Techstars Central poured resources in Italian startups Arbor Insight, Bettaknit, Lemons in the Room, Litlyx, Materiaintel, and Vocations (see here a previous post by BeBeez). These companies will join Techstars Transformative World Torino, an acceleration programme, with AlterEcho (Denmark – robotics); Axem (Hungary – embedded software); frnt (London – post-stream shopping analysis); Granter.ai (Portugal – AI agent for subsidies); Recrewty (Montenegro-HRtech); and spacebrains (Slovakia – a platform that liases STEM talents with industrial innovators). Martin Olczyk heads the programme for which Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center, Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo and Fondazione CRT provided support. Bird & Bird assisted Techstars. Edwin Pircher co-founded Arbor Insight, an agritech firm. Barbara Fani, Elisabetta Fani and Federica Fani founded Bettaknit which provides sustainable kits for DIY knitwear. Alessandro Napoli is the ceo and co-founder of Lemons in the Rooms offers Virtual Reality solutions for the health care sector. Antonio Verdiglione is the ceo and co-founder of Litlyx, an open-source platform for web analysis. MateriaIntel, is an AI-based market analysis platform for border carbon adjustments. Alessio Gavinelli and Alessandro Galli founded Vocations, a tool that checks the careers page of companies websites.
With its 2025-2029 business plan, Milan-listed venture capital Zest aims to expand its portfolio through follow-on deals, carry on acquisitions worth 82 million euros (from current 55 million) by 2029, 15 million investments and exits of 22.5 million (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Marco Gay is the executive chairman of Zest while Luigi Capello is the ceo.
