The week in Italian startups - Issue #53
The Money
Red Circle (Renzo Rosso's investment vehicle) invested in Planet Farms, a vertical farming operator managing Europe's largest vertical farm. Amount undisclosed.
Poke House, a food startup specializing in poke, raised €20m in a round led by Eulero Capital. FG2 capital and existing investor Milano Investment Partners joined the round.
Cosaporto, a gourmet groceries and food delivery startup,🇮🇹raised €2m in a round led by Innova Venture.
PharmaPrime, a Rome-based drugs delivery startup, 🇮🇹raised €1.5m from a syndicate of investors led by Primo Ventures (see below).
CDP Venture Capital co-invested with e-Novia in three deep-tech startups incubated by the latter: Weart (VR), Wahu (wearables) ed Existo (wearable robotics).
Surge, a collaborative data management startup based on the blockchain, raised an undisclosed amount from Gellify and Azimut Digitech Fund.
M&A and IPOs
SECO, an Industrial IOT company, is listing its shares on the Italian Stock Exchange. The company expects to float 37.773m shares with a price range between €3.30 and €4.15 per share (valueing the company between €264.6m and €332.8m).
Healthware Group, a "digital health" consulting company, announced the acquisition of London-based SWM (Streaming Well Motion).
New Funds
Vertis SGR 🇮🇹 announced Vertis Venture V Scaleup, its fifth fund, with the goal to raise €100m.
🇮🇹 Primomiglio SGR rebranded itself as Primo Ventures and announced its third fund, Primo Digital, with the goal to raise €80m. (disclosure: I am a member of the investment team @ Primo Ventures).
Reading this week
Following the Italian and European Q1 reports on VC & fundraising, it is now time to take a look at how was Q1 in the Central and Eastern European region. Spoiler: not too bad.
For perspective, this is the NVCA report about Q1 2021 in US Venture capital.
In case you missed it, Europe is drafting new regulations related to AI, trying to ban or limit its use in edge cases (e.g. surveillance). Here the European Commission website with all the details. I welcome the goal of protecting the rights of European citizens, but I am also worried that the EU might end up creating more red tape, hindering innovation, failing to protect people so much. We'll see.
Jobs in Italian startups
You can explore 🔍 open positions here. Feel free to share the link with your contacts.
Add new open positions using this form 📥 forward this to your CEO or HR person - the more open positions, the more relevant the list, the more it will travel across the web. Thank you! 🙏🏻
Ending notes
Cubbit, a distributed and privacy-oriented cloud storage startup (and one of Primo Ventures portfolio companies), is offering a discount on its cells that 🇮🇹 I am happy to share. The company also pledged to donate to The Ocean Cleanup for each cell purchased through the link above. 🐳
Take care and have a great week, ✌🏻
Nico
