The week in Italian startups - Issue #20

The Money

• Enthera Pharmaceuticals [cb] raised €28M in a Series A round led by Sofinnova Partners [cb] (already an investor at the seed round). The company researches solutions for autoimmune diseases.

• Keyless [cb] 🇮🇹 announced a $2.2M investment round, raised from a syndicate of investors including P101, Luiss Alumni 4 Growth, Primomiglio, Maire Investments, and other business angels. The company is developing a privacy-oriented, biometric authentication solution. (disclaimer: I'm a member of the investment team @ Primomiglio, and quite interested in cybersecurity 😉 - feel free to reach out if you are in the sector)

• Restorative Neurotechnologies 🇮🇹 raised €1M from a syndicate of investors, including CDP Venture Capital. The company is developing Mindlenses, a special pair of glasses that stimulates cognitive capabilities.

• Fido [cb], a fintech company specialized in customer scoring / credit rating, 🇮🇹 raised €1.1M from a syndicate of angel investors.

• Voiced of Wealth [cb], a wealth management marketplace, announced a new €1.5M round from a syndicate of investors including Crif, Gellify, and others.

• LetYourBoat [cb], a boat hospitality and experiences marketplace, announced a €1M round raised from LigurCapital and a syndicate of angels. LigurCapital is an investment vehicle created by the Liguria region for local strategic investments.

New funds on the horizon

• Primomiglio also announced the first closing of its Primo Space fund. With a €58M initial allocation, the fund invests in "upstream" and "downstream" space-related technologies. 🇮🇹 It is run by a dedicated team. Welcome on board!

• Eureka! Ventures [cb] 🇮🇹 announced the first closing of its first fund, Eureka! Fund I. With €38M now ready to be deployed, it will invest in deep-tech startups at the PoC, seed- and early- stages.

• Tim, one of the leading Telco operators in Italy, teamed up with United Ventures [cb] to launch a new investment fund focused on telecommunications. The fund will have a target size of €150M and will invest in growth-stage startups in Italy and across the EU.

M&A

• Software houses Synesthesia and TheLab announced a merger, creating an end-to-end digital solutions provider ranging from mobile to e-commerce.

Green deals

• The European Commission runs several investment schemes for European startups. One of these, the European Innovation Council, published the list of the 64 EU companies that were selected to receive an aggregate of €307M in the "Green Deal" call launched earlier this year.

• The money will be released through a new "blended finance" scheme including grant and equity.

• Congrats to Tecno Italia, Prima Industries, and the friends at Tomapaint for being selected! I had hoped for a few more 🇮🇹 projects making it to the final list. Oh well, next time, maybe?

Benchmark your SaaS

• Openview published its 2020 SaaS Products Benchmark report. It contains really interesting insights from >150 respondents. If you run a SaaS business you probably want to take a look at the (free) report. 😉

Ending notes

As usual, feel free to share the newsletter with anyone who might find it useful. And keep sending feedback / ideas / news that I missed, they are more than welcome!

Thank you and have a great week,

Nico

Supported by VC Hub Italia