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.
Growish, innovative startup incubator certificate Digital Magics, offers the first service in Italy to raise money among friends on the web via the method of online "collection" (whip-round): the Collection 2.0. Friends, relatives and colleagues who live in different cities, regions and nations, can share the shopping, paying each its share for any occasion - Christmas, birthdays, weddings, graduations, births, anniversaries, travel, etc... - automatically, simple and safe thanks to the technological payment platform developed by Growish.
Growish, www.growish.com, is the first service in Italy allowing friends, allows, relatives and colleagues - who live in different cities, regions and nations - to share the expense of a group gift, paying each his own share with a simple click and in a safe way, thanks to the technological payment platform developed by the company. Made the whip-round, you can invite other people via Facebook or via e-mail. Reached the desired amount, you can transfer the money to a bank account or buy giftcards and gift boxes from partner companies such as Alitalia, Amazon, Cisalfa, Chicco, Coin, Eataly, iTunes, Mondadori, Snapfish, UPIM, Zalando, Decathlon, Emozione3 or an exclusive product catalog. Many e-commerce are integrating the button "Pay with Growish" on their sites: in this way users can open up a whip-round for the desired product, and collected the total amount the need, the gift will be shipped directly to your home.
Growish aims to combine two trends that are developing very rapidly in Italy - digital payments and the sharing economy - and solve a common problem in real life, which creates complications, stress and loss of time: the collection of money among people to buy products or group services. With Growish all this is possible in a transparent, simple and safe way, and with a few clicks.
Digital Magics, has since the outset supported Growish, founding the company with Claudio Cubito, for the business idea and innovative financial service that it offers: the FinTech is one of those areas where Digital Magics has been specializing in the growth rates and the contribution of added value that it brings to companies and users."
ITALIANS AND THE "STRESS TO COLLECT"
The traditional whip-round is a significant source of stress for Italians: in fact, 36.7% of Italians said they had had problems for non-payment of the fee agreed by the other participants and even Italian 2 out of 3 (68.9%) have complained about delays in payment.
These are the figures that emerge from a survey carried out in June 2014 by a prestigious research institute chaired by Prof. Beniamino Stumpo.
Interviewing a representative sample of Italian, approximately 25 million people between 20 and 50 years, it is showed that 84.7% of Italians have participated in at least a collection to buy a product or service in the last 12 months (from which 52.3% were women and 47.7% men). 72.6% more than 3 times, 36.8% even more than 6 times, while 27.4% only once or twice.
Digital Magics is a certified venture incubator of innovative startups in the digital space, which offer content and services with high technological value. Digital Magics is quoted on AIM, the Alternative Capital Market dedicated to small and medium-sized Italian companies with high growth potential, organized and managed by the Italian Stock Exchange. Digital Magics builds and develops internet startups alongside founders, investing equity and providing acceleration services. It starts from talents and ideas, turning them into successful and disruptive businesses in the Italian and international digital economy. The incubator promotes a culture of entrepreneurship and risk, contributing to economic growth and employment for young people. Digital Magics offers services to support innovation, creation and development of digital startups, and supports the search for new private and public investors, Italian and international, to fund the next phases of development. The Digital Magics model is unique in Italy and is based on the Digital Magics LAB: the team that identifies, analyzes, and launches new initiatives, providing innovative services of acceleration to digital businesses for development of the company. Digital Magics has in its portfolio over 39 investments in startups. It has made 6 exit, and only 4 write-off. The incubator has invested to date approximately 14.8 million Euro, of which 5 million from the exits. Currently, the average investment is around 300,000 Euro.
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