Today between 11am and 12am, the first Investor’s Coffee of BeBeez will be held. This is an online networking opportunity for growing companies and private capital investors (see here a previous post by BeBeez). VRMedia will sponsor the event. BeBeez‘s editor in chief Stefania Peveraro will moderate the panel. The list of speakers includes Federico Gulletta, Franco Tecchia, Diego Comina (Chief Executive Officer and Chief Technology Officer and Business Development manager of VRMedia), Nicola Redi, Managing Partner of Venture Factory, Marco Maggialetti, Director and Corporate Prospective Business Management of RINA. Sign up here for joining the event. VRMedia is a spin-off of Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna di Pisa that attracted Vertis Venture investments in 2018.
iHeartMedia, a Nasdaq-listed company, acquired New York-based Voxnest, a company born in 2018 out of the merger between Italy’s Spreaker and US-based BlogTalkRadio (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Francesco Baschieri (ceo), Rocco Zanni and Marco Pracucci founded Spreaker in 2010 and attracted investments for 675k euros from Italian Angels for Growth (IAG) in October 2010, July 2011 and September 2015. Spreaker’s founders sold all their stakes in iHeartMedia.
At the end of September, Italian innovative startups attracted the investments of 7,229 Italian companies which acted with a corporate venture capital approach, said the data of the fifth Observatory on Italian Open Innovation and Corporate Venture Capital of Assolombarda, InnovUp, Smau, and the Chambers of Commerce of Milan, Monza Brianza, and Lodi (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Corporate venture capital players invested in 3,267 (2,656 the previous year) innovative startups. InfoCamere, the Observatories of Milan Polytechnic, Confindustria, and Piccola Industria Confindustria provided scientific support and sponsorship for the Open Innovation Observatory that shared its research during Smau 2020.
Letsell, an Italian scaleup designer of e-commerce sites, raised one million euros from Stefano Buono’s LIFTT (0.5 million) and a group of private investors (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Letsell raised 0.75 million in May 2019 and 0.42 million in May 2020. The company was born in 2017 as a spinoff of Brandsdistribution, an online B2B distributor whose founders are Carlo Tafuri, Luca Ferrero, Michele Contrini, and Angelo Muratore.
Iotty, an Italian producer of design solutions for smart homes, raised 3 million euros from Friulia, who acquired a minority, and Intesa Sanpaolo, which provided a financing facility (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Edoardo Cesari and Alberto Bacchin founded Iotty in 2017 and launched a on Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign that went in overfunding by 200%. Iotty has sales of 0.343 million and an ebitda of minus 0.129 million.
Fintech startup Workinvoice and Passeportout launched a business software with an integrated service of invoice financing for companies with a turnover of above one million euros (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Matteo Tarroni, Ettore Decio and Fabio Bolognini founded Workinvoice in 2013 and in September 2018 sold a 10% to Gruppo Crif and launched CribisCash. In 2019, Italian invoice financing platforms handled transactions for 1.12 billion (see here the Private Debt Report 2019 available to the subscribers of BeBeez News Premium).
VC Hub Italia, an Italian association of venture capital investors, would suggest the Italian Government to improve the Tech Transfer, reform the tax credits incentives for the Life Science sector and to implement a structural change for the pre-clinical and clinical trials (see here a previous post by BeBeez). The entrepreneurs and investors that joined Tavolo Life Science (TLS), an event of VC Hub and Alira Health, analysed the current conditions of the pharmaceutical, biotech and medtech sectors. The list of venture capital funds and startups that joined TLS includes Aurora Science, Biovalley Investment Partners, Genextra, Indaco, Panakès, Sofinnova Partners, Aileens Pharma, Alia Therapeutics, Altheia Science, Amypopharma, Betaglue Technologies e BiovelocITA, CellPly, Corion biotech, Crestoptics, Diadem, Echolights, Endostart, Enthera, Epsilen Bio, EryDel, Genespire, Innovheart, Newronika, PatchAI, Silk Biomaterials, Tensive, and Thetis.
Cassa Depositi e Prestiti launched Acceleratore Imprese and Digital Xcelerator (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Cdp will support those companies that will be part of Acceleratore Imprese with a team of professionals of the fields of strategic consulting, management selection and training, digital transformation, and tax and legal. The program will allow to join networking events like Officina Italia. Digital Xcelerator is a free e-learning platform for Italian startuppers.
Vittoria hub, the Italian incubator of Vittoria Assicurazioni for insurtech startups, launched a call for ideas that will reward winners with 55k euros (See here a previous post by BeBeez). Startup that use AI, IoT and Distributed Ledger Technology may gain the access to the programme Via2 (Vittoria Incubation, Adoption & Acceleration) that has three stages: incubation, adoption and acceleration. The list of partners includes BeOn, Backtowork, CRIF, Design Group Italia, Doppia Elica, E-levation, F2A, FairConnect, Fintastico, G2, Horsa, Knowhedge, Logotel, Mastra, Microsoft for Startups, Maps Group, Osservatori.net, Orrick, Robosque, Tacoma, Studio Dattilo e Delta. The list of start-up partners includes Lokky, Med-EA, Hlpy, and IBC. In November 2019, Vittoria hub launched a startup call and launched its incubator.
