United Ventures Closes Fund at $80M, Plans To Take Italian Talent Global

Milan, 28th October 2014 - United Ventures, the European technology-focused Venture Capital firm, has today announced the closure of its first fund with $80 Million (€50 million), well beyond its final target size of €50 million ($63.6 Million). The new fund, entitled United Ventures One, is a significant milestone for the Milan-based Venture Capital firm and signals a renewed interest by investors into the European tech space. The firm to date has already invested over €16 Million in nine companies operating across Europe and North America including significant investments into MoneyFarm, Cloud4WI, Halldis and Appsbuilder as well as 20Lines, Marinanow, LoveTheSign and Badseed.

Investors in the fund are two-thirds comprised of institutions, banks and fund of funds and one-third individuals. The Europen Investment Fund joined other investors in United Ventures, including the Italian Investment Fund, who committed €10M in the first closing while the remaining €20M have been committed by Fondazione Banco di Sardegna, the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Lucca, Banca Sella Holding and Banca Patrimoni Sella & C. "The European Fund historically has invested very little in Italy and it is the first time that it does so in a corporate vehicle".
The investor base sees the participation, beyond the Italian Investment Fund, of other institutional funds - such as Fondazione Banco di Sardegna, Foundation Savings Bank of Lucca, Banca Sella and Banca Patrimoni) and of private investors at the side of the management team, such as Matteo Fago, co-founder of Venere, Marco Corradino co-founder of Volagratis, Edoardo Loewenthal of 6Sicuro, Valerio De Molli of the European House Ambrosetti and Davide Serra of Algebris Investments.

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Bauzaar raises funding from P101

Milan, 28th October 2014 - Bauzaar, e-commerce specialized in food and snacks for dogs and cats, with offices in Milan and Molfetta, announced today that it has raised a funding round of undisclosed amount from venture capital fim Programma 101 (P101), with the participation of Club Italia Investmenti 2, less than a year after the first investment received from venture incubators H-Farm and Boox.

Founded in 2013 by Matteo Valente and Domenico Gimeli, two young entrepreneurs that have decided to challenge the market by launching an innovative e-commerce portal dedicated to food for cats and dogs, Bauzaar is specialized in the online sale of high quality food and snacks for the palate of our four legged friends. In the first nine months of 2014, the company has shipped over 70 tons of products all over Italy, with more than 6,000 processed orders and 4,000 customers. The strength of this small but innovative enterprise lies in its shipment organization, the so-called "Organized Delivery" thanks to which its clients are able to directly plan the frequency with which to receive the chosen products, without having to repeat the order and payment every week or month and to save up to 10% forever.

Bauzaar offers its clients a form of direct contact with an expert, who is ready at the drop of an hat to dispense suggestions on nutrition and general health.

Bauzaar will allocate part of the new resources to the strengthening of the new offer,

continuing to select only the best products for feeding, care and welfare of pets. The company is also engaged in research and development to produce its own line of innovative foods and snacks. On technological side, the startup is rolling out the mobile version of the platform, which enables customers to complete their purchases conveniently and in mobility through smartphones and tablets. 

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Scloby raises €250k im seed funding from Club Italia Investimenti 2

Scloby, the system that turns your smartphone into a cash register, has raised €250k in seed funding from Club Italia Investimenti 2. The startup presented at Smau, the Milan-based international ICT trade exhibition, the new mobile receipt printer that allows you to print receipts and invoices on the move wherever you are. Fully integrated with the rest of the digital services of the system, the printer represents the latest addition in time order for the Turin, Italy-based provider of innovative online and mobile solutions for merchants.

Issueing a receipt or an invoice can be sometimes difficult, especially for those working on the move. Who is required to have them, needs devices that are easy to carry and easily rechargeable. For this Scloby, the system that integrally replaces the traditional cash registers and management software with tablets and smartphones, has created the portable fiscal printer Scloby Mobile. 

The device allows to work in full autonomy and mobility: it can be clipped to a belt and, along with the tablet or the smartphone, will allow you to print receipts and invoices on the move wherever you are. The device is fully integrated with the rest of the digital services. The printer, in fact, allows to get POS payments compatible with the major banks and to keep under control your own stock (central or in mobility). Suitable for those who do home deliveries, but also artisans and professionals, the printer integrates seamlessly with your existing e-commerce. The device offers maximum agility also in terms power supply: the printer can in fact be easily recharged from the mains supply or from the cigarette lighter of your car.

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Growish raises €500k from four business angels

Milan, October 14, 2014 - A group of prominent angel investors has signed a capital increase of € 500,000 in Growish the Milan, Italy based innovative startup incubated within Digital Magics that offers friends and colleagues to raise money and purchase gifts online. 

The investors, who have joined the round, have a proven experience and a track record ind Italian and international digital space: Anna Siccardi, Nader Sabbaghian, Antonio Pisa and Alessandro Rivetti. 

Even the founder Claudio Cubito and the CTO Domingo Sarmiento Lupo have increased their investment in this round. Digital Magics, certified incubator  of innovative startup listed on the AIM market of the Italian Stock Exchange (symbol: DM), has supported and will continue to support Growish - startup of its portfolio - in later stages of development. At the conclusion of the capital Digital Magics will hold 43% of the share capital of the company.

The Digital Magics Angel Network, is  a network of 100 private operators, institutional funds and industrial partners that support Digital Magics in the selection, mentorship and co-investment of proposed ideas and startups in the development stage and already developed by the incubator.

Thanks to the new resources, Growish: will focus on the growth of the company by launching marketing activities and strengthening its positioning in the Italian market - also through important partnerships - and will develop the mobile app for tablets and smartphones.

Growish will increase the team of the startup with the entry of new members: two developers, a sales manager and a digital marketing specialist, that will flank Claudio Cubito (47 years old, Co-Founder and CEO), ex CEO of  a chemical  multinational company and founder of the italian branch of EMP the rock e-commerce number 1 in Europe, Domingo Sarmiento Lupo (27 years old, Co-Founder and CTO), venezuelan engineer expert in digital management and Alessandro Martello (43 years old, Strategic Marketing & Sales), Contract Professor in Brand Management at the University Cattolica - Milan - and ex Marketing Director & Innovation Manager at Henkel.

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Klikkapromo raises €600k in funding

Milan, October 13, 2014 - Klikkapromo, the Milan-based innovative startup specializing in digital couponing and shopping offers, has successfully completed a further funding round which ended up with a share capital increase of €600k and aims now to consolidate its leadership in the digital and mobile couponing space. The operation is follows the capital increase of €1M made ​​in 2013, which has enabled the company to launch the first and only 100% digital couponing platform Pazzi per le Offerte (Crazy about Offers), active both on the web and on the  iPhone and Android mobile store. An innovative service that allows users to purchase products on which a coupon is active at any point of sale, from supermarket to the local store, and then cash-in the rebate in the form of phone cards and gasoline vouchers. 

The innovative KIikkapromo service, which allows users to always have at hand coupons on many essential products and the best brands, counts today 350,000 registered users and in the early months of its activity has involved more than 20 large companies in the large-scale retail channel (GDO - Grande Distribuzione Organizzata) for a total of more than 1 million downloaded coupons that can be used in all distribution channels. 

The capital increase was subscribed by the entire board of Klikkapromo and all other members of the shareholding structure of the company. Thanks to this operation, the two  majority shareholders, Gianluca Andena with Andena Holding and Guido Paolo Gamucci with Bincot - ex partner in the private equity fund Permira - increased their majority stake in the company and hold now two-thirds (65%) of the shares of Klikkapromo. The injection of the new financial resources will be entirely devoted to the strengthening of marketing and communication activities as well as to reach a broader customer base. Indeed the company expects to double the number of subscribers by the end of the current year and to exceed the threshold of 1,000,000 of users in the first half of 2015, with the aim to offer brand companies an innovative promotion channel for an increasingly numerically important public. 

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Programma 101 invests in Waynaut and joins Club Italia Investimenti 2 to push Waynaut's international expansion

Programma 101 (P101), the venture capital fund promoted by Andrea Di Camillo (ex founder of Banzai and Vitaminic) and sponsored by Azimut Holding and the Italian Investment Fund, focused on early-stage investments in the digital space between €500k and €3M, has invested in Waynaut (previously known as Youmove.me), the Milan, Italy-based multimodal transportation platform that allows to integrate in a simple and immediate way detailed information on how to reach any place, by using all kinds of means of transportation from the more traditional ones such as train and plane to the most innovative ones like such Uber and Blablacar. P101 thus joins, in the capital of Waynaut, the venture capital vehicle already present in the company, Club Italia Investimenti 2, who did already invest €50k in the company a pre-seed funding round held in May 2013. The amount raised was not disclosed, by given the investment range of P101 there is to bet that the investment was of at least €500k.

Founded in 2013 by Simone Lini, Waynaut is the first aggregator in Europe of traditional and innovative transportation thought for businesses wanting to enhance their offers or provide an additional service to their customers showing how to reach a destination in a simple and fast way. The company provides information on all means of transportation with a current coverage of 80% of the Italian territory. Waynaut was the first provider in Italy to make available such products in an international context characterized by a

not yet very high competition. It is a virtually untapped market showing attractive growth opportunities. Taking the example of online travel agencies, which are more and more attentive to propose solutions that cover the entire customers' trip, they will be able to offer through the Waynaut API a complete information to guide users door to door. Or just think of any business, website or app for the organization of events that is not satisfied with the only provision of the address or some general information on how to get to the event itself, but wants to give clear guidance on means that at any given time the customer can use along the way. 

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