The week in Italian startups - Issue #54

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

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.

Supported by VC Hub Italia