TWIS #261
Back from a sleepy August: Waveful, NablaFlow, Glutensens and others raised funding. ITA launches a new edition of its Venture Academy.
Hello,
Welcome back to The Week in Italian Startups, in a shortened summer version. This is Niccolò from Primo Capital: every week, I publish my curated list of the latest news from the Italian startup ecosystem.
Back to regular season after a month-long hiatus. August was sleepy but not without news. Kudos to EightSleep for the huge round! And, is Bending Spoons really eyeing an IPO? It was not on my 2025 bingo card.
The Money 💰
Waveful, a mobile social platform, raised €2.1m in a Seed round from a16z Speedrun, Italian Angels for Growth (IAG), Vento Ventures, Zest, Vesper Holding, and several business angels.
NablaFlow raised €1.1m in a Seed round from CDP Venture Capital, Plug and Play Tech Center, UniCredit, Fondazione di Modena, and Artec Holding.
Glutensens 🇮🇹raised €1.05m in a Seed round from Farming Future, Fondo per l'Imprenditoria Femminile, and ToSeed & Partners.
Lit raised €570K in a Seed round from Zero, Ortus Capital, Angels4Women, Business Angels.
Equis, a startup facilitating generational transition in SMEs, joined the latest European Fin/Tech Accelerator batch by Tenity and raised 350k.
The Money International 🌎
Eight Sleep raised $100M to expand its AI-powered sleep tech | TechCrunch.
Studio Atelico Raised $5M to Build Games That Couldn’t Exist Before.
Kyte 🇮🇹raised an unknown amount in a Seed round from Outsiders Fund, Ulixes Capital Partners, and Alumni Ventures.
New Funds💫
Lazio Innova 🇮🇹announced a new fund-of-funds investment program (Lazio Venture 2) to support VC funds investing in startups based in the Lazio region.
M&A 🥩
Superstudio Events Acquired Audiolux.
Reading this week📚
Bending Spoons bags €500M+ in debt, eyes IPO next | TFN.
Italy raises the bar as Tech investment soars past 2020 total – and it's only August | EU-Startups.
A market map of AI-native Italian startups | The TechShop on Linkedin.
An 🇮🇹interview with Enrico Pandian.
Amazon and TEHA 🇮🇹published a joint study showing how Spain is attracting more (+60%) foreign investments than Italy.
Italy ranks #10 in a study about the most entrepreneurially minded nations (in case you are wondering from the article above, Spain ranks #5).
Jet HR launched an expansion plan.
ITA’s Venture Academy is back
Starting October 1, 2025, Italian Tech Alliance launches the sixth edition of the Venture Academy. Until December 17, participants will attend 12 online sessions held every Wednesday (12:00–14:00 CET), plus 3 in-person special lessons in Turin (Opening), Rome, and Milan (Closing). Applications are open until September 26 EOD via the application form available on this page, where you can also download the full program. The Opening Lesson will be hosted as a side event of Italian Tech Week in Turin and will be free to attend for non-enrolled participants, subject to seat availability (register here).
🌟Jobs in Italian Startups🌟
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Startup Events in Italy🎪
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Fundraising Tracker 📈
Ending Notes📝
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Have a great week,
N.