The Money

• Heroes [cb], a company acquiring and scaling local brands selling on Amazon, raised $65M in an equity-and-debt round, with the participation of investors 360Capital [cb], Fuel Venture [cb], and Upper90 [cb].

• MyAir, a Boston and Milan-based startup developing AirGo, a respiratory monitor for critical patients, 🇮🇹raised €1M from Health Technology Holding [cb].

• White Libra, the developer of a collaborative platform aimed at supporting modern organizational processes, 🇮🇹raised €1.2M from a syndicate of investors including Intesa Sanpaolo (a leading Italian bank) and business angels.

• Qapla' [cb], a shipping aggregator + tracking provider for eCommerce, raised €950K in a syndicate round including Italian Angels for Growth [cb], CDP Venture Capital [cb], Doorway, MoffuLabs [cb] and others.

• Vikey [cb], a startup providing self-check-in services for accommodation, raised €800K from a syndicate including CDP Venture Capital, LVenture Group [cb], and Italian Angels for Growth.

• Worldz [cb], a social e-commerce startup, 🇮🇹 raised €572K through a convertible loan. Intesa Sanpaolo was among the investors.

• Noisefeed [cb], a sport-tech startup aggregating data about anything related to professional football players, 🇮🇹 raised 265K from LigurCapital [cb].

Fresh capital for Italian startups

• CDP Venture Capital 🇮🇹 announced a new fund, Boost Innovation, to invest in startups alongside Italian corporations, in a sort of CVC "enabler". The fund will start with €50M under management. Lorenzo Franchini will be the fund managing partner.

• Archeide, a Luxembourg-based alternative asset manager, announced the launch of Innovazione Italia, a €50M fund focused on investing in Italian innovative startups.

A new Cybersecurity Foundation

The Italian government 🇮🇹 approved the creation of a new foundation. the "Istituto Italiano di Cybersicurezza (IIC)", to promote the research, development, and adoption of cybersecurity technologies and frameworks in both government and industry. The government allocated a budget of €210M from 2021 to 2024.

Market entry

French AI/insure-tech startup Zelros [cb] 🇮🇹 announced the launch of an Italian branch.

Reading this week

Startup Genome published its latest Global Startup Ecosystem report. You can download it from here.

Key takeaways (page 14):

• The global startup economy creates $3 trillion in value 🤯

• 7 out of the top 10 largest companies in the world are in technology ⌨️

• in 2019 VCs invested close to $300 billion across the world 💰

• But only 14.1% of founders are female 👩🏻..

Italy is almost not on the map, except for Milan and Rome that are named among the emerging ecosystems. We are still hitting well below our weight, but this demonstrates a big opportunity to grow.💪🏻

Ending Notes

This is the end for this week.

Stay safe,

Cheers,

N.