The week in Italian startups - Issue #74

The Money

• Futurely, a startup supporting kids in choosing a university, 🇮🇹raised €1.5m from business angels from IAG and Angels4Women.

• MDOTM, an AI-powered investment advisor, raised €6m in a Series B round.

• Lithium Lasers, a spinoff from the Politecnico of Milano, 🇮🇹raised €700k from Poli360.

• ViteSicure, an insuretech startup, 🇮🇹raised €500k from Reale Mutua Assicurazioni and other investors.

• Reasoned Art, a crypto art startup, raised €310k in a pre-seed round from LVenture and others.

• Esperia Investor 🇮🇹acquired 43% of real-estate crowdlending platform Recrowd.

• Trainect, a startup developing a wellness solution for enterprises, 🇮🇹raised €175k.

• Neva SGR invested $4m in a $40m round raised by Skydweller Aero.

• A couple of weeks back I missed the announcement of Vertis Ventures 5 Scaleup, a new VC fund with a target of €100m. VV5 also led a €9.1m investment round in Skinlabo.

Liquidity Events

• Vedrai, an AI startup, 🇮🇹acquired 51% of Premoneo, a dynamic pricing company.

• Alchimia was among the investors in Cue Health, a biotech startup that went public last week. The fund reports a 30x multiple on its initial investment.

• BusForFun 🇮🇹acquired the assets of busrapido.com

ITATech 2.0

CDP Venture Capital and the European Investment Fund joined forces, 🇮🇹announcing a €260m investment program aimed at technology transfer. CDP and EIF did the same in 2016 when they launched the original ITATech program.

Reading this week

• Startup Wise Guys published a report on the Italian B2B digital startup scene.

• Federico Wengi from Paua Ventures published a bullish post about the waking up of the Italian tech ecosystem.

• Legal Tech Italy published a report on the legal tech scene in Italy (scroll down on the homepage to find the download link - the report is in Italian).

State of European Tech 2021

It's that time of the year again: Atomico is looking for contributions for its State of European Tech 2021 survey. In their words:

The State of European Tech report is coming back for 2021 - the biggest year yet for Europe’s tech ecosystem. Atomico, in partnership with Slush, Orrick and Silicon Valley Bank, would like to hear from you in order to tell this incredible story. 

By participating in this survey, you can make sure your perspective is represented in one of the most definitive datasets in European tech.

We are proud to support the survey and its goal of reflecting the experiences of every part of the tech community. To help us tell your story, fill in the survey before October 20. It only takes 5 minutes, and you’ll only see questions relevant to your expertise.

There’s also the chance to win some of Atomico’s amazing prizes this year including 2 tickets to Slush in Helsinki. Other prizes to be revealed week on week. Fill in early on to be in with the best chance of winning.

A selection of positions published last week on XJobs

• Gyala is looking for a Software Engineer

• Makr Shakr is looking for a Human Resources Specialist

• Ventiseidieci is looking to fill a role in its R&D team – Advanced materials

• Soplaya is looking for a developer Backend/Full stack

• Mapendo is looking for a Social Media Manager

About XJobs:

• The XJobs platform is a free portal listing open job positions from the Italian startup ecosystem, managed by CDP Venture Capital. If you desire, you can apply for free and have your job positions posted on the platform by following this link.

Ending Notes

Join the Clubhouse conversation between Giacomo Mollo and myself, commenting on the latest news: this week we are live on Wednesday at 6:30 pm CEST. In case you miss the live discussion, you can subscribe to the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and other podcast platforms.

Have a great week!

Nico