TWIS #207

iGenius announced a unicorn-grade round. CDP VC invest in Nozomi Networks. The Italian Founders Fund, Linfa, the italian office of JOIN Capital, and Kili Ventures were announced to the world.

Jun 17, 2024

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.

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The Money 💰

iGenius, a GenAI startup, announced the goal to raise €650m in funding. The round is open, but Angel Capital Management and Eurizon Asset Management have already invested. The premoney is >€1Bn: finally, Italy has its GenAI unicorn.
Aidexa, a fintech bank, 🇮🇹raised €16m.
Cube Labs, a publicly listed, life science-focused venture incubator, 🇮🇹announced a new share issue to raise up to €5m in fresh capital.

The Money, but abroad 💰🌎

Almanax.ai, a crypto security startup, raised a pre-seed round from Defy.vc (amount undisclosed).
CDP VC 🇮🇹invested USD 11m in Nozomi Networks, joining the company’s USD 100m Series E.
Exor Ventures invested in Paris-based Zeliq, and in US-based Viaduct.

New funds 💫

Welcome to the Italian Founders Fund, a new €50m fund backed by Italian entrepreneurs.
Riello Investimenti launched Linfa, an agrifood-tech fund with an initial commitment of €45m, and a €100m target.
JOIN Capital officially announced the opening of its Italian office.
Also, welcome to Kili Ventures, a pre-seed and seed fund aimed at African innovators.

M&A 🥩

Intesi Group 🇮🇹acquired a minority stake in Verbalizza.com

Reading this week 📚

Top SaaS people in Italy (according to the folks at Crono).
AVM Gestioni, an asset management company, announced Musa, a philanthropic program to support entrepreneurs.
How VCs become assholes (NFX).
The state of Data and AI (Databricks).
Situational Awareness: The Decade Ahead (a 165-page-long essay on AI from Leopold Aschenbrenner, recently laid off from OpenAI).
The European Scaleup Monitor 2024 (Scaleup Institute).

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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.

Fundraising Tracker 📈

By the way, excluding iGenius (since the round is still open, and there is no public info about the current fundraising status), Q2 2024 is on track to be the worst of the last 10 quarters (see below).

Check out the full tracker in real time on the dashboard.

Ending Notes📝

Don’t forget to look at the TWIS dashboard for the latest updates.

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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,

The Week in Italian Startups