The week in Italian startups - Issue #66

The Money

• Soldo, a UK and Italy-based startup offering payment and spend management solutions, raised $180m in a Series C round led by Temasek.

• Yapily, an open banking API startup based in the UK and founded by Stefano Vaccino, raised $51m in a Series B round led by Sapphire Ventures.

• Poke House, the Italian food startup that raised €20m not long ago, 🇮🇹announced an investment in its Dutch rival Poké Perfect.

• Fybra, a startup developing an air quality sensor, raised an undisclosed amount from a group of industrial partners.

Liquidity events

• It seems that Zegna Group has agreed to go public in a SPAC deal, valuing the luxury fashion brand $3.2b. Some quick-and-dirty comparable analysis with its main rivals in this article.

New Funds

• Panakés, a VC firm specializing in biotech / medtech, announced the first closing of its Purple fund, at €150m.

• Claris Ventures announced the final closing of its biotech fund at €85m.

Azimut

• Azimut is one of the leading asset managers in Italy. In the last couple of years, it started diversifying its financial products portfolio by venturing into venture capital, crowdfunding, and even security tokens.

• Last week Azimut received approval by Luxembourg authorities of AZ RAIF Digital Assets, a fund specializing in investments into crypto assets, tokens, securities, and companies operating in the crypto space. The fund will be destined for professional investors, not retail.

Jobs in Italian startups

• You can explore open positions here. Feel free to share the link with your contacts.

• You are welcome to add new open positions using this form. Or, forward the link to your CEO or HR person - the more open positions, the more relevant the list, the more it will travel across the web, the more candidates will see it. Thank you!

• New this week: Plug'n Play is looking for a venture intern for their food-related programs

Ending Notes

See you on Clubhouse to discuss last week’s news (every Monday at 6:30 pm CEST). In case you miss the episode, you can subscribe to the podcast on Spotify.

Have a great week,

N.