The week in Italian startups - Issue #47
The Money
DoveVivo, a co-living company, 🇮🇹 raised €30m. Tamburi Investment Partners participated in the round.
Bipi, a Madrid-based car & motorcycle rental startup, raised €6m from P101. The company, currently operating in Spain and France, is planning to expand to Italy.
Altilia, an AI-based process-automation startup,🇮🇹 raised€3m from CDP Venture Capital.
Angelini Pharma invested €15m in Argobio, a French-based biotech startup studio. The startup raised a total of €50m.
Epicode, a coding school, 🇮🇹raised €1m from a syndicate of business angels.
Volocopter, a German air-taxi startup, raised €200m in a Series D round. Atlantia SpA [ATL.MI] joined the syndicate with a €15m commitment.
Humaans, a London-based HR startup founded by Giovanni Luperti, raised $5m in a seed round.
AreaMedical24, a Turin-based telemedicine startup, 🇮🇹 raised €400k from Exprivia and AImpact.
New funds
Blacksheep Ventures, a fund specialized in European MadTech (marketing and advertising tech), 🇮🇹 was officially announced with a target of €100m.
CDP Venture Capital announced its Evolution Fund (Fondo Evoluzione), a €100m fund focused on deep-tech technologies.
M&A News
Cedacri, a financial & banking software provider, was acquired by ION in a €1.5b transaction.
OTB Group (founded by Renzo Rosso) acquired the Jil Sander fashion brand from Onward.
Reading this week
Milkman Technologies, a last-mile delivery startup, was featured on Tech Times.
Congratulations, Mr. President!
Gianluca Dettori (chairman and founder of Primomiglio SGR), 🇮🇹was elected as new president of VC Hub Italia. The board of the association welcomed also Lucia Faccio, Roberto Magnifico, Alessio Beverina, Fausto Boni, Enrico Pandian, and Stefano Portu.
(disclaimer: I work for Primomiglio SGR)
Bio-On
This is a story of acute business analysis and well-timed short-selling, in a time when GameStop had not yet occurred, and hedge funds would not fear retail investors.
Bio-On was a public company, developing bio-plastics with an environment-friendly attitude. I say "Was" because, in 2019, Quintessential Capital Management released a report calling Bio-on a "castle of cards" built by the management with the goal of "getting rich at the expense of shareholders".
As you can imagine, 🇮🇹 legal battles ensued, but the management had to give in and the company 🇮🇹 was forced into bankruptcy within a few months.
Bio-on was trading at its peak at a >€1b market capitalization. In May, 🇮🇹the company's assets (including production facilities, brands, and patents) will be auctioned, with a starting price of €95m.
If you are into bio-plastics, there might be something interesting for you in this auction.
Ending notes
This is it for this issue. As always, feedback and comments are welcome!
Oh.. and happy women's day! 💐
Have a great week,
N.
