Cdp Venture Capital – Fondo Nazionale Innovazione invested 31.5 million euros in the UV T-Growth fund through FoF VenturItaly and the Co-Investment Fund of the Italian Ministry for Economic Development that United Ventures manages (see here a previous post by BeBeez). TIM Ventures, the corporate venture capital of Milan-listed TIM, is a cornerstone investor of UV T, which has resources of above 100 million ahead of a target of 180 million to reach by the end of 2022. The fund will invest in the sectors of 5G, Artificial Intelligence, network infrastructures, cybersecurity, Internet of Things, cloud, industry 4.0, data & analytics, fintech, SaaS, and gaming.
Wonderflow, a Dutch startup that developed a software for analyzing the feedback of consumers, raised 20 million US Dollars from Klass Capital, P101, Italia 500, and Jan Bennink (see here a previous post by BeBeez). In December 2020, Bennink, P101 and Italia 500 invested 2 million in Wonderflow. Roberto Osti (ceo), Giovanni Gaglione (cto) and Michele Ruini (coo) founded Wonderflow in 2018. The company will invest the raised proceeds in its organic development.
Sofinnova Partners, a life science venture capital, invested 6 million euros in Italian startups AAVantgarde Bio, Alia Therapeutics and Borea Therapeutics (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Sofinnova carried on the investment through Sofinnova Telethon Fund, an early-stage vehicle for which Fondazione Telethon acts as advisor. Milan-based AAVantgarde Bio is a developer of genic therapies for hereditary retinal diseases that Alberto Auricchio founded. Alia Therapeutics is developing a next-generation medicine for safer on-target in vivo gene editing approaches to treat retinal degeneration. Borea Therapeutics is working on a new generation of gene therapies that would target specific tissues and cells. Paul Heppenstall and the European Molecular Biology Lab (EMBL) founded Borea.
Italy’s e-commerce for beauty products Abiby attracted 2 million euros from Seven Investments, a firm of Angelomario Moratti (see here a previous post by BeBeez). In May 2029, Abiby raised 1.5 million. Mario Parteli and Luca Della Croce founded the business in 2018. Abiby has sales of 0.579 million, an ebitda of minus 1.1 millions and net cash of 225k euros.
Kampaay, the Italian startup for the organization of events, raised 1.5 million euros from 360 Capital and other investors (see here a previous post by BeBeez). The company raised 0.18 million in June 2020 and 0.4 million in November 2020. Daniele Arduini (ceo), Stefano Brigli Bongi (cmo), Enrico Berto (Head of Product), and Marco Alba (cfo) founded Kampaay in 2018. In 1H21, Kampaay generated sales of 0.4 million.
Italian fintech SardexPay raised 1.275 million euros from 295 investors through an equity crowdfunding campaign on BacktoWork launched earlier in April (see here a previous post by BeBeez). SardexPay set a target of 0.6 – 2.5 million on the ground of a pre-money value of 17.5 million. SardexPay will invest the raised proceeds in its technology development (49%), multichannel marketing (36%) and hiring new resources (15%). Carlo Mancosu, Franco Contu, Gabriele and Giuseppe Littera founded the company in 2010, while Piero Sanna joined the firm in 2011.
Akuis, a home fitness startup, raised a seed round of one million euros from Fabio Nalucci, the Franzolin-MichelonFamily and Alessandro Dondè (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Nalucci will develop the digital and analytics units while the Franzolin-Michelon Family will supply the know-how for products. Akuis previously attracted 0.95 million. Alessandro Englaro and Mattiarmando Chiavegato founded Akuis in 2018.
Paris-listed Innovative – RFK spa (i-RFK) will subscribe a capital increase of Italy’s Red Raion to acquire 20% of the business, a producer of videos with the Computer Generated Imagery technique, and amusement parks (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Antonio Giancarlo Cannata is the chairman of Red Raion and founded the company with Federico Laudani and Valeria Rizzo.
Italian portal for real estate crowdfunding Walliance closed its first cross-border campaign grace to the licence for operating in France that received from the Autorité des Marchés Financiers at the end of 2019 (See here a previous post by BeBeez). On 26 June, Saturday, Walliance launched the campaign for financing the Milan-based project Via Fulcieri. It raised 2.5 million euros in less than one hour on the ground of a 26% expected Roi for a tenure of 24 months.
SquarEat, a food-tech startup based in Florida’s Miami, founded by Italian entrepeneurs, already raised 100k US Dollars through an equity crowdfunding campaign on Wefunder (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Paolo Cadegiani (ceo) founded SquarEat together with Stefano Bucci (cto), Vincenzo Foglia (coo), Alessandro Della Nina, Andrea Cadegiani, Arturo Casale, Max Catanese, Pier Giraudi, and Matteo Santecchia. The founders already invested 207k dollar since the launch of the company. The upper target of the equity crowdfunding campaign amounts to 500k dollars on the ground of an enterprise value of 6 millions. The crowders will sign a SAFE or Simple Agreement for Future Equity, a contract that will give the right to get shares of SquarEat once it attracts new investors. The investors subscribe to a senior interest-free convertible bond that can become equity at a 20% discount price on the ground of an enterprise value at the first liquidity event. Della Nina said to BeBeez that the company already signed agreements with the influencers of the fitness and healthy food sectors with 3 million followers that will reward the sales they boost.
In 2021, the Startup Ecosystem Report 2021 of StartupBlink ranked Italy as 29th in the table (25th in 2020) (See here a previous post by BeBeez). The outlook for 2022 is negative. Milan ecosystem ranked as 56th in the cities table.
