The Week in Italian Startup

The Week in Italian Startup

By Giacomo MolloBusinessInvesting
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The Week in Italian Startup episodes

  • Cosmico, Liftt, Visma, Q1 2024 in Italian Startups - April 24, 2024

    • Cosmico, a talent-tech startup, 🇮🇹raised €4m from Prana Ventures, 40Jemz, Intesa Sanpaolo, and business angels.

    • LIFTT joined the $26m round raised by Evergreen Theragnostics, a life sciences startup.

      • CDP Venture Capital launched Frontech Accelerator, with Algorand and Microsoft as technical partners

        • Visma acquired Fiscozen: exit for United Ventures and Keen Venture Partners.

          • The first quarter has concluded, and we now have the initial assessments of the Italian startup landscape, as detailed in the VeM report and the Venture Capital Report by Growth Capital / ITA.


            • 19 min
          • Tes Pharma, Proxima Fusion, Bending Spoons acquiring StreamYard, CDP VC plan - April 16, 2024

            • Tes Pharma, a biotech company, 🇮🇹raised €10m from XGen Venture.

            • FidoCommercialista, a tax-tech startup, 🇮🇹raised €1.2m from 40Jemz Ventures, X-Equity Venture Club, i3Charter, Alecla7, and Vesper.

            • Kilogram, a food-tech and wellness startup, 🇮🇹raised 150k from Archangel AdVenture.

            • Proxima Fusion, a nuclear fusion startup based in Germany, raised €20m. The startup is a spin-out of the Max Planck Institute and is led by Italian founders.

              • Oops, they did it again: Bending Spoons announced the acquisition of StreamYard Top Corp (a.k.a. Hopin).

              • Impresoft 🇮🇹acquired Ribes Solutions.

              • Cloud Care 🇮🇹acquired Crea.re Digital.

              • OpStart 🇮🇹acquired a majority stake in BackToWork.

              • Almaviva 🇮🇹acquired Magna Sistemas Consultoria Sa.

                • 19 min
              • BookRepublic raising 1.5M, NExT, Amalia Care, CAC Payback and Churn - April 9, 2024

                • 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.

                  • 27 min
                • Casavo raising 19M, Nouscom, Quantonation, DataKrypto and homomorphic encryption - April 3, 2024

                  Casavo 🇮🇹raised so far €19.5m out of the €30m in convertible debt as it executes its turnaround plan.

                  Nouscom raised an additional €7m into its Series C round (see TWIS #178) from Angelini Ventures.
                  AION Tech, an API orchestration startup, 🇮🇹raised €1.3m from AATECH SPA SB.
                  StepsConnect, a recruiting-tech startup, 🇮🇹raised €1m from a syndicate of investors including 40Jemz Ventures, Eden Ventures, Moonstone Fund, Moffu Labs, and others.
                  Keplero AI, an AI assistant for customer service startup, 🇮🇹raised €400k in a round led by 40Jemz Ventures.
                  Id.Eight, a sustainable sneaker startup, 🇮🇹raised €350k from A|Impact.

                  16 min
                • 1B to AI Investments from CDP, Wesii, Cynomys, Nozomi rasing 100M, Zest - March 19, 2024

                  Wesii, a company deploying drones to monitor critical infrastructure, 🇮🇹raised €2.8m from Terna Forward and DXT Commodities sa.Cynomys, a Precision Livestock Farming startup, raised €2.1m in a seed round participated by Farming Future, dsm-firmerich Venturing, Levante Capital, SVG Ventures, Plus9, in addition to previous investors.TalentWare, a talent management startup, raised €800k in a pre-seed round led by 360cap.Nozomi Networks, an OT and IOT security company, raised $100m from Mitsubishi Electric and Schneider Electric, among others.

                  20 min
                • Kurbs Orbital raising 3.7M, WAO, This Unique, Bending Spoons and Vimeo?, GP Staking - March 13, 2024

                  Kurbs Orbital, a space-tech startup, 🇮🇹raised €3.7m in a round led by Otb Ventures, joined by Credo Ventures, Galaxia, In-Q-Tel, and Inovo.This Unique, startup offering environmentally sustainable menstrual pads, 🇮🇹raised €0.5m in a bridge round by Ulixes Capital Partners, Moonstone, and Longevity Life Holdings.WAO, a proptech startup, 🇮🇹raised €0.8m in a preseed round from OneDay and business angels.CityZ, a smart parking startup, 🇮🇹raised €0.5m from 40Jemz and Magic Spectrum.Bud power, a food for sports startup, 🇮🇹raised an undisclosed amount at a €6m pre-money.Bending Spoons is considering a potential acquisition of Vimeo Inc.Italian Artisan 🇮🇹acquired Ad Hoc Atelier and raised €750k from Primo Ventures.Zucchetti 🇮🇹acquired a stake in EsgMax and 🇮🇹Qualitando.Scaglia Indeva 🇮🇹acquired a majority stake in SysDesign (exit for Cysero).NetResults acquired Awhy.

                  29 min
                • Akuis, 150M for AI and Cybersecurity, H-Farm Delisting - March 5, 2024

                  Akuis, a fitness-tech startup, 🇮🇹raised €1.15m from ALIcrowd III (Azimut), Wemoove, and X-Equity (a club deal).

                  The Italian government 🇮🇹approved a new allocation worth €150m to support investments in AI, 5g, and cybersecurity.
                  H-Farm received a tender offer to be taken 🇮🇹private.
                  One of the eldest of the Italian startup ecosystem reports is finally out: VEM 2023
                  A 78-page-strong report on the Italian VC landscape by P101 + Dealroom.

                  20 min
                • Medical Microinstruments, Superfluid, 3DNextech - February 28, 2024

                  Medical Microinstruments, a medtech company, raised USD 110m in a series C round led by Fidelity Management & Research.3D Nextech, a digital manufacturing startup, 🇮🇹raised €1.5m in a round led by EUREKA! Venture.CaSRevolution, a life sciences startup developing a therapy for Alzheimer's, 🇮🇹raised €1.3m in a crowdfunding round.Superfluid, an Ethereum-based token streaming protocol, raised $5.1m in a round led by Fabric Ventures.Jakala 🇮🇹acquired GotU.Shopfully acquired Ofertia.Reevo acquired Itnet.Everli was actually 🇮🇹taken over by Salvatore Palella, through a €21m capital increase.

                  18 min
                • Gabriele Venturi - PandasAI, Open Source models, defensibility and what is next in AI

                  Gabriele Venturi is founder of PandasAI, a Python library that adds Generative AI capabilities to pandas, the popular data analysis and manipulation tool.

                  In this conversation, we dive deep into various topics related to AI, including the impact of AI on data analysis, the democratization of data analysis, the role of open source vs. closed source in AI, and the business model and sustainability of open source AI. We explore the future of AI interaction and interfaces, the impact of AI on jobs, and the defensibility of AI companies. Additionally, we discuss the future of machine learning professionals and the advancements in copilot technology.
                  [The episode was recorded in October 2023]
                  Takeaways
                  - AI is transforming data analysis by democratizing access to data and providing new ways to interact with and analyze data.
                  - Open source AI is becoming increasingly popular and is challenging closed source AI by providing more customization and flexibility.
                  - The future of AI interfaces will likely involve a combination of conversational and structured data interactions.
                  - AI has the potential to disrupt certain jobs, but it also creates new job opportunities and enhances productivity in other areas.
                  - The defensibility of AI companies lies in building meaningful products and focusing on customer needs rather than just relying on the technology itself.
                  - The future of machine learning professionals will involve a deeper understanding of AI technology, including the ability to build models from scratch and ensure explainability and determinism.
                  - AI copilots have the potential to greatly enhance productivity and assist in various tasks, but their effectiveness will depend on integration and context-specific applications.
                  - The future of AI will involve advancements in explainability and determinism, addressing the black box nature of AI models and ensuring consistent and coherent outputs. Language models can have biases and preferences towards certain options, which can be a challenge to address.
                  - Unlearning and removing data from AI models is an emerging area of research, with applications in correcting incorrect training data and removing biases.

                  55 min
                • Daze raising 15M, Bending Spoons 155M round - will they IPO? Feb 20, 2024

                  • Daze, a startup developing smart chargers for electric vehicles, 🇮🇹raised €15m in a Series A round led by CDP VC, with the participation of EIC Fund, Founders Future, and Prana Ventures.

                  • GuidoIo, an edtech startup, 🇮🇹raised €700k from 360Cp, Growth Engine, and Vesper Holding.

                  • Cloov, a fashion-tech startup, 🇮🇹raised €400k in a seed round.

                  • Bending Spoons confirmed the $155m funding round raised from Durable Capital Partners LP and existing investors Baillie Gifford, Cox Enterprises, NB Renaissance, NUO Capital, and StarTIP. The company reported a $2.55 billion post-money valuation.

                    • Cosmico acquired Bioss.


                      • 22 min

                    About The Week in Italian Startup

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                    The Week in Italian Startup discusses and analyzes the latest news from the Italian startup ecosystem. Giacomo Mollo is a former academic in philosophy turned tech investor. He is co-founder and…

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