The week in Italian startups - Issue #100
The Money
Wsense, an underwater communications startup, 🇮🇹raised €2.5m from a syndicate of investors.
Aryel, an augmented reality startup, 🇮🇹raised €700k in a round led by Prana Ventures.
M&A
New shareholders join LVenture
LVenture Group, the listed holding behind the Luiss Enlabs accelerator, 🇮🇹approved a €2m capital increase to be subscribed by Compagnia Padana per Investimenti.
Reading this week
A 🇮🇹business update about Velasca, a "digital-first" luxury shoes brand. TL;DR: €13m in revenues in 2021, and the goal to reach €18m in 2022.
Q1 is in the books
Meaning that it is time to take stock:
Ubaldo Mafrici and Matteo Moscarelli did a great job in their medium post about Q1 in Italian VC. If you like this newsletter, you will love their round-up of the first quarter.
Secondly, Yannick Roux and Stefano Bernardi released the latest edition of their EuroVC newsletter. TL;DR: we had 33 new funds in the EU that raised €4.8Bn (including 2 in Italy, raising close to €100m).
Fundraising tracker
Every week, I am posting a fundraising tracker based on the news I publish.
Ending Notes
Wow. Here we are with issue #100 of my newsletter. When I started, more than 2 years ago, it was a simple experiment. Today, there are more than 1250 subscribers, with an extremely high open rate (>60%) and click rate. I'd never expect to get this far.
Dear reader, this is only thanks to you: thank you for supporting this newsletter, for reaching out with feedback, with a proposal to have a chat. Please continue doing so. 🙏🏻
And, best of all, it is a real joy to reach this milestone on my birthday. 🎂😎 If you feel like making me a present, tell your friends, colleagues, and investors about this newsletter. 😉
The next edition of our live chat will be on Tuesday, 19/4. Giacomo Mollo and I will be joined by Ubaldo Mafrici and Matteo Moscarelli to comment on the first quarter of 2022 in Italian startups at 7:00 pm CEST on ClubHouse (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.