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The week in Italian startups - Issue #88
The Money
Indaco Venture Partners participated in a CHF4m round raised by Cysec, a Swiss cybersecurity startup.
Thinkinside, an indoor positioning startup, raised €1m from CDP Venture Capital and Add Value.
Albicchiere, a wine-tech startup, 🇮🇹raised €710k.
Horsa Group, an IT company, 🇮🇹invested €250k to acquire 3.4% of Spartan Tech, a blockchain development startup.
Iconium, a crypto investor, announced an investment in the Secret Ecosystem Fund, a $225m fund to build an ecosystem around the Secret Network blockchain project.
Poké rulez
Poké is hot (again). Poke House (that in 2021 raised €20m, see issue #53, and currently manages 75 restaurants across Europe) announced it has become the biggest minority investor in Sweetfin, a California-based poké brand managing 14 restaurants, with the goal to participate in the expansion of the company in the USA.
Meanwhile, Innovative-RFK, a public investment holding, announced it acquired 10% of PokeScuse, another Italian chain of poké bowls restaurants with 30 shops currently open.
Is poké becoming a new Italian national dish?
M&A news
Glovo acquired Socialfood, a food delivery startup operating in Southern Italy.
In-Lire, a fintech startup developing a commercial credit circuit, 🇮🇹acquired Tibex, another circuit originally related to Sardexpay, a bigger competitor of In-Lire.
Eco-mind acquired 100% of HeadApp, the developer of Eye4Task, an AR system for remote assistance.
Assist Digital acquired German IT company Comselect GmbH.
Ardian 🇮🇹acquired Biofarma from White Bridge Investments.
Other investment news
Nestlè 🇮🇹committed €5m to Eureka! Fund 1.
Credem joined Fin+tech, a fintech accelerator promoted by CDP Venture Capital, as an investor.
Wine Report
According to a 🇮🇹report published by Cross Border Growth Capital and vino.com, the wine market in Italy was worth €14.2b in 2021, but only 4% of it was sold online (vs. 11.9% in UK, 9.9% in France).
Recent job positions from XJobs
MTM Project is looking for a HR Training Specialist
React4Life is looking for a Biotech Inside Sale Specialist
Neurala is looking for a Operations Engineer
MyGrants is looking for a Recruiter
Satispay is looking for a Senior Legal Counsel
[Bonus - not from XJobs but interesting nonetheless]: Bizaway is looking for a VP of People
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 conversation between Giacomo Mollo and myself commenting on the latest news, every Monday at 6:30 pm CET (follow us on twitter for a live reminder and the link: Nico / Jack). If you miss the live discussion, you can subscribe to our podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and other podcast platforms.
Have a great week,
N.