The week in Italian startups - Issue #48
The Money
Claris Ventures announced its first investment, leading a $21m round in Cambridge-based Neophore, a biotech startup developing new generation cancer neoantigens.
Euleria, a B-corp developing technology-enabled rehabilitation programs,🇮🇹 raised €300k from a syndicate led by A|Impact.
Alimentiamoci Srl, the company behind sustainable e-grocery Planeat.eco, 🇮🇹 raised an undisclosed amount from TIP [TIP.MI] and other business angels.
M&A
TeamSystem announced the acquisition of 59% of Modefinance, a startup applying data-science to finance & credit rating.
Sumologic [SUMO] acquired DFLabs SpA, a cyber-incident response platform.
Berlin-based (but Italian at heart) Habyt acquired global coliving provider Quarters.
Fintech news
Sardex, a fintech company developing a commercial credit marketplace counting more than 10.000 SMEs to-date, 🇮🇹 rebranded as Sardex Pay.
With Bitcoin over $60k 📈, Oval 🇮🇹 launched Bitcoin Generation, a new ETN tracking a bitcoin ETF 🤯.
Wearables and COVID-19
Empatica received the CE mark for detecting early symptoms of COVID-19 using wearables. According to the article, it is the first company to achieve this milestone.
Crowdfunded VC
Azimut did it again: after being the first Italian asset manager to raise a (well, two) VC fund from private investors (we talked about it), the asset management company announced AliCrowd, the first venture capital ELTIF 🇮🇹 to be raised on a crowdfunding platform (Mamacrowd).
The company aims to raise €25m, starting from a minimum of €15m; it will use Mamacrowd to select qualified investment targets but I could not find a clear investment guideline anywhere: will they only invest in deals published on Mamacrowd? Or diversify the portfolio with active scouting? Any pointers are welcome!
SheTech Founders List 2021
I am a week late on this one (sorry!): on international women's day, SheTech published its founders list 2021, featuring 10 women-led startups to watch in 2021.
Dealroom VC Rankings
Dealroom published the "VC Prominence Rank", featuring an interesting mapping of global investors: it is possible to drill-down by country (try searching for Italy). Navigating the complete list requires a paid account.
Ending notes
Welcome to all the new subscribers (there were many of you last week)! If you like this newsletter, forward it to one of your contacts!
Have a great week,
N.
