The Week in Italian Startup

• Arsenale Bioyards raised $10m in a Seed round from Planet A, byFounders, CDP Ventures, Acequia Capital, Plug N Play, Business Angels and Grey Silo Ventures.

• Mopso raised €1m in a Seed round from Apside, Fin+Tech, CDP Venture Capital, Centro Istruttorie, and Business Angels.

• Lilac-Centro DCA raised €693k in a Seed round from Personae, CDP Venture Capital, SocialFare Seed, Sullivan Venture, Generaimprese, and Milano Venture.

• Shop Circle raised €60m in equity and debt in a Series B round from Nextalia Ventures, Endeavor Catalyst, NFX, QED Investors, 645 Ventures, 3VC, CDP Venture Capital, The Techshop, Primo Capital, GS Futures, and i80 Group.

• Fedrigoni invested in France-based Papkot, alongside Square Capital and previous investors.

• Bancomat 🇮🇹acquired FlowPay

• Facile.it 🇮🇹acquired Italfinance Group

• TeamSystem 🇮🇹acquired Golden Soft in Spain and Cle’mentine in France.

Newronika, a company specialising in advanced deep brain stimulation, raised €13.6m in a Series B round from Fondazione ENEA Tech e Biomedical, Indaco Venture Partners SGR, Innogest Capital SGR, Wille Finance, TNBT Capital, and F3F.NOB 4.0 Srl (Imatra) 🇮🇹raised €8m in an Early-stage round from CDP Venture Capital, and Fintech Partners.Approxima, a biotech startup, 🇮🇹raised €7.3m in a Series A round from ENEA Tech and Biomedical Foundation, Panakès Partners, Club degli Investitori, and Business Angels.ExoLab Italia, a biotech company, raised €5m in a Series A round from dsm-firmerich venturing, CDP Venture Capital, Linfa, and Maia Ventures.TimeFlow, an IT-supplier management company, raised €4m in a Early-stage round from Vertis, Azimut, CDP Venture Capital, Growth Engine, FNDX, and Duccio Vitali.Drivesec, an IOT cybersecurity startup, 🇮🇹raised €3m in a Series A round from LIFTT and Levante Capital.VST Srl 🇮🇹raised €3m in a Early-stage round from ENEA Tech and Biomedical Foundation.Focoos AI, an AI-vision startup, 🇮🇹raised €2.65m in a Seed round from Galaxia, CDP Venture Capital, PiemonteNext, VC Partners SGR, Vertis SGR, Vento, and Exor Ventures.Bnbkit raised €1.5m in a Seed round from business angels.

Akamas, a cloud optimization startup, raised $10m in a round led by United Ventures.Krill design, a sustainable materials startup,🇮🇹raised €6m from Algebris Investments, Primo Capital, and Crédit Agricole Italia.AIKO, an AI for space startup,🇮🇹raised €520k from Club degli Investitori.Chapeau Media 🇮🇹raised €140k in a Seed round from Marcello Ascani.Contents.com🇮🇹raised a round from Side Angels, for an undisclosed amount.Claro AI, an AI startup based in Berlin, raised €650k from Atlas SGR, Antler, Founders Factory, Fastweb, Plug & Play, and D11Z.EssilorLuxottica acquired the Canadian med-tech start-up Cellview | EssilorLuxottica.LimoLane 🇮🇹acquired Asia Car Service.Teamsystem 🇮🇹completed the acquisition of Muscope Cybersecurity announced back in Novembre 2024 (disclaimer: this was a portfolio company of Primo Digital).

A deep dive into Freiberg and Matz’s 2023 Paper ‘Founder personality and entrepreneurial outcomes'

References

Freiberg, B. Matz, S. (2023). Founder personality and entrepreneurial outcomes: A large-scale field study of technology startups. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(19), e2215829120. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2215829120

M&A🥩

Bikeflip, a bike ecommerce, 🇮🇹raised €1.6m from undisclosed investors.Onepix Academy, a chatbot startup, raised €500k from Edizioni Simone.Viola, a personal safety startup, 🇮🇹raised €428k from a syndicate of business angels.Liquid Factory 🇮🇹announced the first 4 entrepreneurs accepted in the program - each of them will receive €200k from Banco Popolare di Sondrio.Vet services platform Lupa raised $4M Seed.Lingotto Investment Management 🇮🇹led a €120m Series B round in Neura Robotics.Algebris 🇮🇹launched Algebris Climatech, with €60m in initial commitment and a target at €100m.ENI Plenitude 🇮🇹acquired Tate.Ambienta platform company Namirial acquired Digital Technologies.Impresoft 🇮🇹acquired Blulink.EY’s Venture Capital Barometer is usually the first of the main publications about the Italian VC scene to see the light. This year is no different.EY reports a slight growth in capital raised (€1.127b, +7.5% over 2023), mainly in the Health & Life Science, Software & Digital Services, Technology & IoT, Fintech.

EssilorLuxottica acquired French Startup Pulse Audition for Smart Glasses Tech. | Glass AlmanacVertis 🇮🇹announced Vertis Venture 6 Digital Sud, a new early-stage fund investing in the digital transition in Southern Italy.Wellhub acquired FitPrime. According to Zest’s 🇮🇹announcement, Wellhub paid €50m (half cash, half shares) for the company.Tes Pharma announced a €5m extension of its Series A financing with Indaco Venture Partners.Veos Digital announced a €2m convertible loan, fully subscribed by its controlling shareholder Veos Group.PopulaRise, a digital marketing startup, 🇮🇹raised €400k from a syndicate of business angels.PlantBit, an agri-tech startup, 🇮🇹raised €200k from Scientifica VC.Angelini Ventures co-led a €20m round in Copenhagen-based NEUmiRNA Therapeutics.Circle acquired Telepass Innova's telematics and infomobility division.Matipay 🇮🇹acquired Enginko.Next4 🇮🇹acquired WDA, a venture builder.

AutoConnexa, an insuretech startup, raised €2.2m from CDP VC and business angels.Kinsect, a startup producing insect-based sustainable proteins, 🇮🇹raised €1m from Farming Future, Terra Next, Agrox, Forest Valley.Restworld, a company matching demand and supply for work in the hospitality and restaurant sectors, 🇮🇹raised €650k in equity and €350k in debt. Day Ristoservice led the equity round.Moneyfarm acquired Willis Owen, an investment platform. The company reached £5b in assets under management.Textile Solutions Group 🇮🇹acquired Limonta Informatica.iGenius unveiled Colosseum: one of the world’s largest NVIDIA DGX AI supercomputers with NVIDIA Grace Blackwell Superchips. Just, wow.

Volta, a French / Italian Shopify for B2B transactions, raised €6m in a pre-seed round led by Emblem and participated by Robin Capital, Founders Future, Sequoia, a16z, Exor, and Ithaca.