Buzzoole, a Naples-based startup that allows firms to identify its own social network influencers and to generate an online word of mouth, raised 7.8 million of euros (see here a previous post by BeBeez). The list of investors includes StarTIP (part of Tamburi Investment Partners), Vertis Venture 2 Scaleup, Impulse VC (sponsored by Russian entrepreneur Roman Abramovich), R301 Capital, Brahma AG, Panda Partecipazioni, and ScaleIT Ventures. Buzzole will invest these proceeds for expanding the business in UK and Usa consolidating its position in the Italian market, and in R&D. Fabrizio Perrone, Gennaro Varriale, Luca Pignataro, and Luca Camillo founded Buzzoole that now has revenues in the region of 8 million. Euronext allowed the company to join the Techshare programme.
Italian minor football club Pordenone Calcio launched an equity crowdfunding campaign for raising 2.2 million of euros on TheBestEquity, a platform that Gamga launched, CrowdfundingBuzz reported (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Gamga belongs to Alessandro Giglio (chairman), Marco Tajana, and Gabriele Vedani. Pordenone Calcio, the first Italian football team  to launch an equity crowdfunding campaign, will sell a 40% stake on the ground of a pre-money evaluation of 3.3 million. The team will issue the following shares: type-C, without voting rights, for investments between 250 and 5,000 euros; type-B (5.001-25,000 euros) that give pre-emption rights; type-A (above 25,000 euros) that give voting and pre-emption rights. The football team will invest the proceeds of this fundraising in the Pordenone 2020 project that aims to create fertile youth football teams, said chairman Mauro Lovisa.
AbiLab, the innovation centre of Associazione bancaria italiana (ABI), and Assofintech, the Italian association of fintech and insurtech companies, signed an alliance for the development of fintech (see here a previous post by BeBeez). AbiLab and Assofintech aim to develop further the infrastructures for crowdfunding, blockchain and payment instruments.
Giovanni Buono will leave his roles as ceo of Housers Italy and as Director for the International Business Development of Houser, and will join FinLeap, a German incubator for fintech startups, for developing the Italian business (see here a previous post by BeBeez). In FinLeap Buono will act as Entrepreneur in Residence. Finleap hired also Andrea Tessera, the former global head of marketing at McIntosh Group and Chili. Tessera will act as Director of Studio in FinLeap. Last Summer also Matteo Concas, previously Italy’s country manger of German online bank N26, joined FinLeap as head of Beesy, a portal that the German firm launched with Fabrick (part of Banca Sella). Marco Berini is the ceo of Finleap Italy and FinLeap director of internationalization. Berini previously worked with Unicredit as Innovation manager and head of UniCredit evo(equity venture opportunities), a partnership that the bank signed with Anthemis, a fintech venture capital firm. FinLeap raised 41.5 million of euros from Global Voyager Fund, part of Chinese insurance giant Ping An.
