Sep 20, 2020

The week in Italian startups - Issue #25

By Niccolò Sanarico • Issue #25 • View online

Hello! This is Niccolò from Italy, touching upon the most interesting news from the Italian week in startups.

This issue covers investments in mixed reality, travel, and legal-tech. Atomico is back with the State of European Tech - and asks for help! A new report on the Italian fintech market (TL;DR: growing but still not shining). A couple of interviews from the ecosystem.

Enjoy the reading,

A message from Atomico

The friends at Atomico [cb] are working on the 2020 edition of the State of European Tech, and they are calling for help from across Europe:

We need your help in telling the story of European tech. Atomico, in partnership with Slush and Orrick, and with support from Silicon Valley Bank are again running the largest survey of European tech. They want to hear from entrepreneurs, investors and people across Europe’s many start-up hubs. Results will be published on December 8th. Please click here to participate and have your say. 10 respondents will also be selected to win an all-access pass to Slush’s virtual platform, Node.

Now, back to our usual schedule!

The Money

Hevolus [cb], a mixed-reality and innovative customer experience provider, raised €4M from CDP Venture Capital, through its Italia Venture II fund. The company is a Microsoft Worldwide Partner for mixed reality.
Tramundi, a travel experiences startup, 🇮🇹 raised €1.5M from a syndicate of business angels, including Alberto Genovese cb.
Legal-tech startup Sliding Life 🇮🇹 entered Digital Magics [cb, DM:MI] portfolio. The startup offers legal services related to divorces and other family-related legal matters. The investment size is undisclosed.
Genextra [cb] 🇮🇹 sold 1.9% of its stake in Intercept Pharma [ICPT], with proceeds estimated at >$50M.

Italian Fintech Waves

Last week, during the Italian Insurtech Summit (organized by the Italian Insurtech Association), EY presented its latest Italian Fintech Waves report [pdf download], a research on the local ecosystem in partnership with the Fintech District.

Two charts hit me while skimming the report:

In the first, I’m surprised (but not too much) to discover that the top 20 fintech startups in Italy are men-only:

An exclusive club?

In the second, the funding trend for fintech companies is heading upwards, but in 2020 it seems to be lagging. In fact, Progetto Banca Idea alone raised €45M back in July.

2020 Road block?

The report contains a thorough analysis of the Italian ecosystem, if you are into fintech it is worth a read.

Enea Tech

We talked in August about the newly established Enea Tech Foundation, an institution with €500M under management focused on investing in technology transfer.

The latest news is that 🇮🇹 Salvo Mizzi was nominated as managing director of the foundation. Salvo is a Kauffman Fellow and a former manager in the telco sector with a decade-long experience in venture capital. Congratulations on the new role!

Riders rights

One of the so-often-discussed downsides of the gig economy is that gig workers do not benefit from the same protections and rights found in more traditional job categories.

This might change. Matteo Sarzana, general manager of Deliveroo Italy and president of Assodelivery, the association representing food delivery companies in Italy,🇮🇹 announced on Linkedin the creation of a standardized contract for Italian riders.

The contract includes minimum wage, insurance coverage, bonuses, and other welfare-related clauses, but discussions are still ongoing around the document, as several major worker unions have not accepted it.

Interviews & opinions from the Italian ecosystem

Most of the interesting content published in Italy is, go figure, written in Italian. But this week I’m happy to share a few articles in English from our ecosystem. Hopefully the beginning of a trend?

Giuseppe Donvito, partner at P101, published an opinion about AI and blockchain, with an eye open on the Italian case;
ScaleupItaly, a blog run by Ilaria Cavalleri, professor of entrepreneurship at the Bocconi University, hosted a couple of interesting interviews: the first one with Matteo Cascinari, partner of Primo Space (disclaimer: I’m part of Primomiglio SGR investment team);
the second with Andrea Orlando, the newly appointed managing partner of Startup Wise Guys Italy.

Ending notes

US tech companies’ IPOs have been all the rage this week, and I feel compelled to mention them in this newsletter 😆. The other day I came across this post on Crunchbase about the VCs that invested in Snowflake over the years and, oh boy, the final numbers are mind-blowing. Even better, Sequoia listed two portfolio companies in the same week (the other being Unity).

They are kings.

Thank you for reading this far, have a great week, and stay safe!

Nico

Supported by VC Hub Italia

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By Niccolò Sanarico

The week in Italian startups is a weekly collection of the most interesting news in the Italian startup ecosystem, with a focus on funding rounds, milestones, major partnerships, and innovation news. The weekly email will be in your inbox on Monday morning(-ish).

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This newsletter is supported by the Italian Tech Alliance (https://www.italiantechalliance.com/).

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