The week in Italian startups - Issue #69
The Money
Oversonic Robotics, a humanoid robots startup, raised a round from Fintel, a family office. The amount is undisclosed but it appears to be close to €4.5m.
Exor, the holding company of the Agnelli family, invested $50m in MyTVS, a one-stop-shop car services aggregator.
Some news from the summer:
Liquidity events
Telepass acquired Wise Emotions, a digital company developing mobile-first products, and announced the creation of the Telepass Digital division.
Footballco (a TPG controlled company) acquired calciomercato.com for $10m.
Other news from earlier in August
VentureItaly, the fund-of-funds managed by CDP Venture Capital, 🇮🇹 invested in Opes Italia SICAF EuVeCa, an impact fund.
Tau Group, a Turin and Berlin-based automotive startup developing carbon-conscious protective coatings for high-performance and standard copper, aluminum, and steel wires, raised a €€10.25m series A round led by Finindus, a Belgium-based investment company financed by ArcelorMittal and the Flemish Region.
Corticale, an IIT spinoff, raised €2m from an angel investor. The company is developing SINAPS, a technology that will be able to "listen" to brain activity through micro-implants as thin as a hair.
Venture capital and access
I talked before about fund managers raising capital from private and retail investors, offering access to startup deals that would not be otherwise accessible by these investors.
Azimut, the Italian asset manager, has pioneered this type of offering, with already three "retail" funds investing in startups.
Intesa Sanpaolo, one of the biggest banking groups in Italy, is following suit: after the acquisition of Neva Finventures and its transformation in Neva SGR, 🇮🇹 the bank will now offer to its private clientele the opportunity to invest in the fund, offering access to a portfolio of early-stage startups.
The holding that holds them all
I found this article quite interesting: it's again about Intesa Sanpaolo acquiring a stake in Futura Invest spa. The amusing bit is that Futura Invest is a holding company with important shareholders (Fondazione Cariplo, Fondazione Enasarco, Mediolanum Vita, and others) that owns a stake in many Italian VCs (as a shareholder of the ManCo): Indaco, Vertis, LVenture, Eulero Capital, Quadrivio SGR.
Sometimes just investing in the funds is not enough. You really want a piece of the governance 👥.
Jobs in Italian startups
You can explore open positions here. Feel free to share the link with your contacts.
New this week: open positions from Clearbox.ai (Frontend Engineer) and Freedome (Partner Success Manager, Content Manager, Frontend Developer).
As you know, CDP Venture Capital launched its XJobs platform a few months back. They are currently offering more than 500 openings from more than 50 startups. If you want, you can apply for free and have your jobs positions posted on the platform; just follow this link.
From now on, I am retiring my airtable form and I'll be sharing the latest, most interesting positions from the XJobs platform. I'll keep the link to my airtable available for a few more weeks before shutting it down.
Less work for you, less work for me, and more value for the ecosystem.
Interesting positions published in the last few weeks:
BrumBrum is looking for a Senior Python Developer
Empatica is looking for a Junior Accounting Specialist
Soplaya is looking for a Senior UI/UX
Casavo is looking for an Acquisition Junior Analyst
Cubbit is looking for a Data Engineer
Moneyfarm is looking for a Performance Marketing Specialist
Ending Notes
Let me know your feedback about the XJobs platform, and feel free to write me with any questions. Having a single point of information for the Italian startups was my goal, and the CDP team is doing an excellent job at offering an aggregated jobs platform.
Finally, remember to join the Clubhouse conversation between Giacomo Mollo and myself commenting on the news every Monday at 6:30 pm CEST. In case you miss the live discussion, you can subscribe to the podcast on Spotify.
Have a great week!
N.