TWIS #197
BookRepublic, NExT, and Amalia Care raised funding. Acquisitions for Accenture Italy and Digit'ed.
Hello,
Welcome back to The Week in Italian Startups. This is Niccolò from Primo Ventures: every week, I publish my curated list of the latest news from the Italian startup ecosystem.
🚀 The Trouble with Rodmaps — From Belka’s Blog (sponsor)
Roadmaps are supposed to make everything easier. But a lot of founders tell us they’re not working. Projects are late, deadlines are missed and the shareholders are impatient.
That’s why Sara Fazzini, Belka’s Design Manager, tried to find out where is the problem interviewing 20 top tech companies.
Why a “feature mindset can be problematic? If your definition of success is delivering each feature on time, on budget, and within a fixed scope but more often than not, you end up delivering late.
How roadmaps should actually work? A roadmap should give everyone on the team an answer to the question: "Why are we working on this particular issue and not something else?"
How the pros do it: the best practice of Immobiliare.it’s design team
In the last 4 years, Belka has helped multiple startups and enterprises growing their digital products: Everyone from NeN, indigo.ai, EltyDaVinci, Subito, Fatture in Cloud, and more…Get more insights from the Italian tech industry and sign up for Belka’s newsletter!
The Money 💰
BookRepublic, a digital e-book library, raised €1.5m from Mondadori, with a commitment for an additional €1.5m investment in 2025. They two will launch Narae, a joint venture focused on webnovels.
NExT, a modular electric vehicles startup, 🇮🇹raised €1.25m from Cysero.
Amalia Care, a health-care startup, 🇮🇹raised €1m from Personae (a CDP-powered accelerator), A|Impact, Social Fare, and business angels.
M&A 🥩
Reading this week 📚
An introduction to ARR → I have encountered numerous founders who seem to regard annual recurring revenue (ARR) as if all revenues were of equal value. However, this is not the case. I highly recommend taking the time to read this article, as it provides an exceptional explanation of what ARR entails and its associated nuances.
Is SaaS math broken? → a.k.a. on the uncertainty of customer retention in the age of AI.
Regarding artificial intelligence, a significant proportion of startups in Y Combinator's most recent W24 cohort - which reflects global trends among top-tier founders - are heavily utilizing AI. Of the cohort, 65% are B2B focused.
Worldpay 🇮🇹adopts Satispay → a partnership that is building an alternative to the big credit card payment networks.
🌟Jobs in Italian Startups🌟
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Startup Events in Italy🎪
Keep an eye on the upcoming events in the Italian ecosystem1. Feel free to add an event through this form.
Newly added events:
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Fundraising Tracker 📈
March ‘24 was a quiet month in terms of capital raised. Only 18 rounds announced for a €2.63m average size.
Ending Notes📝
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Giacomo Mollo and I comment weekly on the latest news: subscribe to our podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcast, Amazon Music, and other platforms to get additional insights on what is happening in the Italian ecosystem.
Have a great week,
N.
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