The Money

• Sysdig, a US-based secure DevOps startup founded by Loris Degioanni, raised $188m in a Series F round.

• France-based PEP-therapy, a biotech company, raised €2.75m in a round led by Italian Angels for Growth.

• Italy loves Hawaiian Poke. After last week's announcement about Poke House, this week I Love Poke 🇮🇹announced a €14m investment from serial entrepreneur Francesco Manzi.

• 2Watch, a media startup focused on e-sports and videogames,🇮🇹 raised €450k from a syndicate of business angels.

• Alokino Gelato, a diary-free brand of ice cream launched in California by Italian entrepreneurs, 🇮🇹 raised €500k from a group of Italian business angels.

• G-Factor, a biotech accelerator, 🇮🇹 invested€390k in three biotech projects entering its acceleration program: Drug Discovery Clinics, InSimili, and NovaVido.

M&A and other news

• TeamSystem is a company known for its portfolio of business software solutions and aggressive M&A activity. But it is expanding its scope, as it 🇮🇹 announced the launch of a€50m fund dedicated to Italian SMEs. It is unclear to me whether it will invest in debt or equity instruments. 🤔

• Santex SpA 🇮🇹acquired a stake in Relief, a meudtech startup and spinoff of the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna.

• Digital Magics [DM:IM]🇮🇹acquired The Doers, a consulting and open innovation company.

Reading this week

• An interview with Enrico Poli, director at Zanichelli Venture, an edtech investment vehicle.

• Top VC firms don't outperform the broader market at seed - this research from Angellist is making less noise than I expected. Probably because the USA is in such a bull market for private capital that the result is obviously skewed - in case of a crunch I bet the odds would change considerably.

Tweet of the week

This one made me laugh. But then I 😭

Des Traynor @destraynor

Signing docs... SF Click here to sign, p.s. we already clicked for you, thanks for signing👍 Europe Murder a raven Sign doc using its blood & feather Scan & email to us Fedex raven to us Send a PDF of steps 1→4 Include video evidence from a witness Please redo with latest doc

8:43 PM ∙ Jan 18, 2023

The Italian insurtech ecosystem map

The Italian Insurtech Association published the Italian Ecosystem Map. Simone Ranucci Brandimarte, its president, announced it on Linkedin.

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

Thank you for reaching the end also this week.

Have a great week!

N.