Get Your Bill receives €390k Seed Funding from Aldabra Capital and Italian Angels for Growth (IAG): valuation at €1.9M

Two investors support the start-up company from Udine (Italy) Get Your Bill, the invoicing software using the POS terminal, receives a financing of €390.000 and is valued at €1.9 million Objective: expand across the Italian market. Many advantages for all stakeholders in the value chain.

Udine, January 12, 2016 - Ultroneo, the start-up company that created Get Your Bill, has attracted its first investors. The software enabling the issuing  of invoices through the POS terminal has obtained the support of a group of members Italian Angels for Growth (IAG), the main business angel group in Italy,  and of Aldabra Capital: the 2 entities have invested jointly €390,000 for 20,7% of the shares, valuing the company at €1,900,000. A very encouraging result for a company born in 2014 and active in the busy world of the payments industry. “Get Your Bill led by Alvise Abù-Khalil, - President of Ultroneo - uses the standard POS terminal of the merchant, identifies the buyer through his payment card and collects from a database in cloud, in just a couple of seconds, the necessary information for the preparation of an invoice: company name, address, VAT number...The application sits on the POS next to the payment application and is compliant with the EMV security requirements. Get Your Bill, also offers a centralized archive of invoices to enable an easier administration”.

The entry of the Business Angels of (IAG) and Aldabra Capital enables Ultroneo to realize its IT plan, which will enrich the basis version of the platform with new functionalities, as well as the marketing plan that will drive Ultroneo into the leadership on the Italian market. Carlo Asquini, the representative of IAG, who has  strongly supported the investment and Renato Giacobbo Scavo, the CEO of Aldabra and expert of financial services, have both expressed their satisfaction.

“The commercialization of the service has started in October – tells Nicolas Ancot, the Marketing Director of Ultroneo with an important experience at Visa - and the business model is designed in a way that it is the  acquiring bank that sells the service to its merchant.

Initially supported by the incubator Technoseed of  Friuli Innovazione - the research and technology transfer center of the region Friuli Venezia Giulia -, Ultroneo has already signed agreements with Consorzio Triveneto (supplier in payments services for various banks among which Banca Popolare di Vicenza and Monte dei Paschi di Siena) and Easy Nolo (payments operator for Banca Sella). Agreements with the other Italian payments operators are well advanced.” Get Your Bill offers advantages to all users of its service and to all actors in the invoicing value chain:

• The buyer: tax savings (possibility to deduct more invoices and recover VAT on them, even for smaller amounts), speed (no more queues at the cash register), simplicity (all invoices available in cloud, for an easier and more automated administration), security (secure archive of the invoices), access (through smartphone or any other device).
• The merchant: simplicity (no more queues and waste of time at the cash register for invoices, all invoices available in cloud for an easier and more automated administration), advantageous (possibility to make the customer loyal through a service that is both useful and free).
• The banks and payment schemes: the possibility to offer Value Added Services to more merchants and customers, enabling thereby the use of electronic payments.
• The accountants: simplification of all the accountancy, through a system in cloud that is simple, secure, fast and structured.

Ultroneo:

Ultroneo s.r.l. is an Italian innovative start-up. Founded in 2014, the company is partly owned by a spin-off of Udine University. The company mission is the creation of innovative services, in Italy and abroad, capable of adding value to the payment transactions. Get Your Bill, the fast lane for your invoice, is the first service to be proposed by Ultroneo s.r.l. and is a registered mark.

Aldabra Capital

Aldabra Capital operates since 2011 as a financing holding for innovative startups for early stage investments. Its industries of reference are electronic payments (2 investments), digital transformation (3 investments), data management (2 investments) and hi-tech (2 investments). The management team of Aldabra supports the start-ups in a very direct and operational way, leveraging on its experience, its network and various professional services (legal, marketing and management control).

Italian Angels for Growth (IAG)

Italian Angels for Growth (IAG) is the major angel group in Italy. It was founded by nine business angels in 2007 and has today more than 120 partners representing one of the most solid associations of European angel investing.

IAG has developed through its partners and the involvement of other operators, investments in  venture capital for about €24M divided into 43 rounds of investment.

IAG partners have contributed to the birth and growth of 28 innovative ventures, excellence in research, technological development and entrepreneurial Italian spirit including  Angiodroid, Agroils, Biogenera, Cellply, Drexcode, Eugea, GreenBone, GipStech, Inventia, Lovli, Margherita Fingerguard, Musement, Ohikia, ProxToMe, Qurami, SediciDodici, Spreaker, Winmedical.

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Meritocracy raises €500k in seed funding from United Ventures

Milan, 21 October 2015 -  Meritocracy, the platform that optimizes the recruiting process will use the raised funds for the development of the technology, to expand business internationally (especially in the UK) and establish itself on the market of software recruiting valued €1bn: these are the goals of the investment round of €500k made by United Ventures in Meritocracy.

Established in 2013 by Riccardo Galli and Alberto Manassero, former colleagues of Economics at Bocconi University, Meritocracy is a platform for employer branding that combines demand and supply of labor and allows companies to select the best candidates. With one goal: to optimize the recruiting process.

Thanks to a proprietary technology that is able to select the candidates who most closely match the preferences of the company, the platform automates the selection process and reduces the time and cost of recruiting activities. Meritocracy also offers businesses a platform for employer branding that enhances the user experience in the process of looking for work, attracting the best candidates.

Today there are several client companies that harness the potential of Meritocracy: among others, Tesla, Moleskine, Tetrapak, Samsung, GroupM, MoneyFarm and Dalani.

A market, that of software recruiting, which is worth

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Filo receives €500k in seed funding from LVenture Group

Rome, 1st October 2015 -  LVenture Group, a holding company listed on the MTA of the Italian Stock Exchange, announced today a co-investment with a total value of €500k in Filo, the startup that has designed and built a device that helps you keep under control your most important personal items.

The total investment  of LVenture Group in this transaction amounts to €100k.

The remaining amount comes from angel investors, some of which are part of Angel Partners Group, a group of angel investors of which LVenture Group is one of the founding members.

Filo is a small a tracking device all made in Italy that uses Bluetooth technology and helps you to find your personal items and keep control on them. Attach Filo to your keys, in suitcase, bag-pack or put in your wallet and through the Filo app, available for all smartphones, you will always know where  your items are. Indeed, the Filo app allows you to visualize the distance as you are approaching your items, to sound in order to localize them in a few seconds, and if you do not remember anymore when you did leave your keys or parked your car, Filo helps you to find them by visualizing the last position. In addition, you can track the associated smartphone with pressing the button on Filo. 

Filo took part in the acceleration program of LUISS ENLABS "The Startup Factory", accelerator controlled by LVenture Group and the result of a joint venture with the LUISS University. 

The new funds will be used for the expansion of the product on the domestic and European markets and to expand the team. In addition, the company will invest in research and development to launch new tracking solutions.

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TIM Ventures bets on two e-commers startups in the UK and Israel

First international investments for TIM Ventures,  the Telecom Italia vehicle for seed and early-stage investments in the digital space, has invested in two startups with high potential of e-commerce sector,  Moltin and Shoppimon.

The two investments were made by TIM Ventures within the Syndicate Investors launched and led by Gil Dibner on Angel List, to invest in European and Israeli startups who demonstrate disruptive technologies and global ambitions. The two investments were made according to a "Bridge to America Strategy," which includes the presence of venture capital funds in the US top tier mechanism that activates the co-investment.

Moltin, a Newcastle upon Tyne, UK-based startup, with offices in Mountain View (California), provides developers with the building blocks needed to build e-commerce websites and mobile applications through cloud-based APIs. This includes components like inventory management, carts, checkout, payments and more. Moltin enables

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Espresso Group's Digital Division and Innogest SGR launch REinventures to back Italian Digital Startups

Rome, 5th November 2014 - Espresso Group's Digital Division and Innogest SGR launch REinventures, strategic alliance in the field of venture capital in order to finance and develop startups in the digital sector. REinventures will enhance innovative business initiatives by integrating, with a model without precedent in Italy, the experience of Innogest SGR - the leading Italian Venture Capital fund - with the publishing and multimedia expertise of Gruppo Espresso.

REinventures will provide selected startups with both financial resources and an average visibility and expertise to develop innovative digital products and services. The digital know-how and visibility offered by the Espresso Group and its newspapers will be crucial in accelerating the growth of the selected startups. Innogest SGR will also contribute to the creation of business opportunities for startups to raise capital overseas and to develop the management team.

Assisting entrepreneurs in the transition from an idea or from a small company to a global player by size is a quite difficult mission. Make extraordinary growth happen outside the US, China and a few other virtuous ecosystems in the world is even more difficult. We need capital, industry expertise, network of relevant people. If a primary group as the Espresso Group comes into play with the strength of its competences as well as of its size, and forms an alliance with the leading Italian operator in the venture capital space, then we are heading in the direction of providing business owners and startups the right resources to make a path of excellence and compete in the global arena. 

REinventures has an initial endowment of € 10 million to be invested over five years. The investment strategy involves

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Innogest SGR helds Second Closing of Innogest II Fund at €70M

Innogest SGR, the leading Italian venture capital firm, announced the second closing of Innogest Capital II fund at €70M (around $90M), out of a non declared target of 60-80 millions. Innogest Capital II is the second fund raised by Innogest SGR and fundraising will be closed next February 2015. Total capital under management currently amounts to over €160M (over $200M). New investors contributing to the second closing include the European Investment Fund and some leading industry experts in the firm's areas of interest, that joined existing private and institutional investors as well as the Italian Innovation Fund (Fondo Nazionale dell'Innovazione). The raised funds - €70 million - should be considered over a period of five years, i.e. as if the fund invests about €15 million a year.

Founded by Claudio Giuliano, the VC firm targets companies in the ICT/digital and med-tech space. Since its founding in 2007 the Innogest investment team invested in 24 companies, 4 of which through its new fund, and helped its portfolio companies in raising over 120 millions in co-investments. Innogest SGR is the leading Venture Capital fund in Italy with offices in Milano and Torino. Its investment strategy targets Italian companies with global ambitions, with specific focus on two areas of interest: ICT/Digital and Medical Technologies. Since 2007 the Innogest team has invested in 24 companies, 4 of which through its current Innogest Capital II fund, and helped its portfolio companies in raising over € 120 million in co-investments.

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Club Italia Investimenti 2 bets in the Italian smart parking app Parkey by providing seed funding

Club ItaliaInvestimenti 2 has invested in Parkey in a seed capital round. Parkey is the new concept of smart parking, a free mobile application developed by Cloud Park, the company that has followed the technological development of the app, available on the iOS and Android platforms, allowing drivers to find out free parking places on the go.

Cloud Park Srl has developed a unique integrated system, named Parkey, an app for iOS and Android devices, which based on Bluetooth 4.0 technology, once uploaded on an iOS or Android smartphones, in addition to identifying and obtaining any kind of information on city parking, not only allows each driver to find and navigate till any public or private parking, but moreover it transforms the smartphone into a remote control that opens and closes any access system to private and public parking. In the meantime, Parkey also executes the money transaction to pay the stop within the parking. Each parking access system recognizes each smartphone as a unique ID through Bluetooth technology installed into the access devices.

By downloading the app and activating the Bluetooth, in just a few simple steps you can locate the nearest car parking garage and reach it quickly, and even the payment for the whole parking time is charged directly to your credit card safely and quickly over your smartphone. With geolocation, you can find the nearest garage and find out if parking is available. By looking at the data sheets, you can

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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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Cynny raises €2.5M in angel funding in just 8 months

Stefano Bargagni the serial entrepreneur who in 1993 founded CHL, the Italian leading company in e-commerce of tangible goods for the end user, and since 2000 listed in the Standard segment of the italian stock exchange, raised €2.5 million -  in 2 equal tranches - in just in 8 months for Cynny, the startup he founded in 2013 and that it is launching a mobile application that brings together file-sharing, tagging and social media.

The company structure was enriched with 41 new members, including some foreigners, with an average investment of around €70,ooo each, reaching a total of 60 members. The capital raised so far by Cynny has been allocated almost entirely to research, development and purchase of hardware. In addition to developing the App, Cynny has created a microserver based on ARM technology. This technology is already operational with 3 rack ("cabinets") of 532 microservers each active in Europe and the United States. 

Stefano Bargagni, founder of Cynny, said: "We're riding on a success story. Cynny is shifting away from its purely creative phase to the "production" one.

What is the Cynny app? Cynny is a new platform that allows users to communicate keeping firmly in control of their data. The Cynny App frees the user from any limits of space, type of file and device and gives him/her total control of sharing, storing, enjoying their contents.

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Velasca raises €125k in pree-seed funding

Velasca, a Milan, Italy-based handcrafted shoes brand, has raised €125k in pre-seed funding. 

Backers include Boox Srl  and Club Italia Investimenti . The capital will be used to expand the customer base of Velasca in Italy and Europe (Germany and German-speaking countries in particular), to improve the experience of web purchase, and for the development of experimental crowdfunding and product "viral" projects.

Velasca was founded with an ambitious project: to bring the famous Italian manufacturing excellence in the field of luxury shoes to the world at a revolutionary price. Velasca eliminates intermediaries and offers high-quality footwear and accessories Made in Italy at affordable prices by connecting artisans and consumers through the proprietary website http://www.velasca.com/. Design and product quality, along with excellent shopping and post-purchase experience, are the result of the innovative approach of Velasca.

Boox is the Milan-based startup accelerator that combines experience and innovation. Its streamlined and efficient structure - along with the know-how accumulated over 20 years in business - gives continuous support to the new generation of entrepreneurs who work on the creation of digital companies. Boox mentors and advisors make available to each founder the right network and experience in the field in order to create a successful project to be launched on the international markets. Boox was founded in 2012 by Andrea di Camillo and Marco Magnocavallo that over the years have founded and led investments in several of the companies that have made the ​​history of the Italian digital landscape as: Banzai, Blogo, Yoox, Venere, DoveConviene, Neodata. The Boox portfolio currently includes  fifteen companies in different stages of development and that are primarily focused on active projects in e-commerce and SaaS.

Club Italia Investimenti is a  venture capital company offering pre-seed and early-stage venture investments in agreement with the main Italian accelerators.

CII2 selects the ventures through the Accelerators with whom it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding. When a startup joins one of These acceleration programs, Club Italia Investimenti (CII2) acquires 10% of the stakes by investing € 50,000. These funds are meant to complete the product's prototype or set up the services, as well as to acquire first customers. CII2 assists startups in raising seed funding (between €150,000 and €500,000), by helping them to validate their business plan and reach milestones in the first term of KPI, secured contracts and a growing customer base. CII2 leans on the web crowdfunding platform SiamoSoci to ensure visibility to the startups, since their inception (founding), and provide investors with full, transparent information. 

Co-investments are done along with Nana Bianca, H-FARM Ventures and Boox.

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Checkbonus raises new funding from Custodi di Successo

CHECKBONUS, the first and most innovative shopping app in Italy to use the iBeacon technology, has closed a new round with Custodi di Successo (Keepers of Success), a leading network of business angels, to continue the path of growth and consolidate its presence throughout the national territory 

Milan, 10 September 2014 - CHECKBONUS, the startup that allows you to increase pedestrian traffic in the stores and to interact in store directly with the customer, finalized in July 2014 a new round of capital increase with Custodi di Successo (Keepers of Success), a leading Italian Business Angels network. With this operation Custodi di Successo enter the shareholding structure of Check Bonus Srl, which in addition to the two co-founders Pierluigi Casolari and Yuri Ceschin sees already committed Key Capital Srl, an investment company specializing in the financing of entrepreneurial ideas in the stages of early development. 

INNOVATIVE SOLUTION. CheckBonus is a tool of enormous potential for retailers - both skilled, both large-scale organized distribution - intending to attract new potential customers in the stores, interact directly withe them through dedicated contents and innovative ways to measure the value of walkability. Customers, in turn, benefit from a multibrand rewards catalog for which the collection takes place at the entrance points in the physical store and of promotions exclusively dedicated to them. 

A SUCCESSFULL IDEA. The unstoppable trend of smartphone usage as a way to make purchases on the move, a need for increased pedestrian traffic in the stores and the interest of the retailer to direct communication with the customer in the store are contributing to the success of CheckBonus. Coin, adidas, Parashop, Hoepli and Brico Sport have already chosen CheckBonus as a partner in their stores in Milan and Naples, and soon also in other Italian cities such as Rome and Turin. 

CUSTODI DI SUCCESSO. Keepers Of Success is a leading Business Angel network with offices in Milan, Verona, Vicenza, Treviso and Udine which now has over 70 members in Italy. In CheckBonus invested members from both the Milan and Vicenza office. 

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Midnight Call raises €500k in seed funding to focus on the expansion of Fazland.com

Milan, July 30, 2014 - Midnight Call, the Reggio Emilia, Italy-based startup which has given rise to Fazland.com, the digital platform that aims to revolutionize the market for household services, announces the entry of new financial partners in the company shareholding.

With the injection €500,000 Milan-based early-stage investor RedSeed Ventures and a syndicate of  "business angels" enter in the share capital of Midnight Call. In addition to the founders joins the capital also Federico Panini, already CTO of the company and part of the team for more than a year. 

The injected liquidity will be used to finance the capillary expansion of Fazland.com on the Italian territory and to test the service abroad  starting from two European cities, as well as to make available the service through smartphone applications and tablets. 

"Fazland represents for us an ideal target for investment, as the service is placed in a still

poorly garrisoned niche in Italy where it is missing a key player. The business model is highly scalable and exportable abroad, the team is young, highly motivated, with significant work experience already gained in other companies. In the coming months we will be working with the team to expand the current customer base and launch new categories of services. "Said Roberto Zanco, partner at RedSeed Ventures. 

"Fazland is the example of the perfect opportunity for a business angel, which can make available to startup a small money investment and experience, with the aim of supporting the team in the industrialization of the service and go-to market, so as to prepare the ground for subsequent funding targeting to the expansion of the scope and internationalization, "said Fausta Pavesio, Co-founder & Executive Director of Easynex and member of the Executive Council of Italia Startup, representing private investors.

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Marinanow raises €370k in seed funding from United Ventures

Do you really need to recall VCs attention by having an original product, innovative technology or a scalable business model, such that books of the theory of startups require. Paolo Codina, Alessandro Sestini, Diego Atzeni and Andrea Corvaglia know the right technology, but at the same time they do love the sea and boats. Two years ago, they came up with the idea to bring the logic of the Internet in a world that still operates mainly in analog mode.

Marinanow is an online platform allowing sailors to search for places to moor their boats in marinas, compare prices between different marinas and book online, it has already surpassed its competitors in terms of raised funds. 
Indeed Marinanow has raised €370,000 of early stage investment from United Ventures the largest Italian technology VC Fund led by Paolo Gesses and Massimiliano Magrini, against €250,000 and € 150,000 raised by SailSquare and Barcheyacht. 

Founded in Sardinia, Italy, in 2012, Marinanow was created by Alessandro Sestini, Paolo Codina and Andrea Corvaglia who all have experience working in marinas. Spun out of the The Net Value incubator, the site offers boat chartering, hiring berths from privates (an Airbnb style service for the nautical world) and refuelling services.

The current systems for booking places for private boats in marinas both in the mediterranean and worldwide is outdated and complicated. There is no one unified system for managing bookings so owners of boats currently have to search for phone numbers of directors of the marina, overcome language and time difference and ring them up to check for and reserve places. If that marina is full, or the director is difficult to reach, the boat owners have to search again for nearby ports.

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Metooo closes €450k second funding round and appoints the new board of directors

Metooo, a Naples, Italy-based all-in-one platform for event storytelling, completed a €450k second funding round, just 9 months after its first seed funding round of November 2013 when the company raised €60k in seed funding. The funding was exclusively raised among private business angels and signs a new direction in the panorama of the italian venture capital.

New investors who bring capital important for development, but also a network of international relations, specific know-how and training fruit of their experience as well as entrepreneurial success. 

The raised funds will allow the continued development of the digital service, whose completion is scheduled for the spring of 2015, a date which will mark the beginning of the internationalization push after an initial period of acceleration which will begin in September, with the opening of the office London of Metooo as a springboard for the UK and USA/CANADA markets.

The operation was coordinated by Studio Bambino & Partners, which acted as advisor of Metooo. 

On this occasion, has been appointed the new Board of Directors, which includes Dr. Carlo Capasso, Dr. Riccardo Romeo, who assumes the role of President, and Dr. Ferdinando Caruso, who was appointed CEO. 

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IMPACT is born, an innovative model of start-ups accelerator: €6.4M for 64 start-ups

Milan, 23 July 2014 - A new startups accelerator is born. The European Consortium made up by ISDI,  b-ventures, the startup accelerator of Buongiorno, Seaya Ventures, Teknologiudviking ApS, and a network of entrepreneurs and well-know professionals of the digital European ecosystem is launching IMPACT which, as of today, is starting (Mobile Internet, Projects Accelerator), its activity as mobile Internet project accelerator with the ambitous aim to finance and accelerate 64 European startups in the coming two years. IMPACT is endowed with €6.4M to invest in start-ups wherein these funds, which amount to an average of €100k per project, will be non-recoverable without equity consideration.

IMPACT is one of the 16 consortiums chosen by the European Commission within the framework of Seventh Program Framework. IMPACT top scored among the 92 projects submitted, of which only 16 accelerators were chosen for the implementation of the FI-PPP initiative (Future Internet Public-Private-Parttnerhip). FI-PPP will provide the selected start-ups with the base technology with the purpose of creating an open environment wherein EU SMEs can take advantage of. The aim of IMPACT is to select and accelerate start-ups associated with mobile Internet which can adopt these European digital technologies (FI-Ware and FI-Content). The accelerator looks for entrepreneurs or start-ups projects that develop mobile apps or business models based on mobility in the communications areas, social, video, media & advertising; design, education, entertainment, e-commerce, peripheral devices, content, connected TV, infrastructure, security, productivity, finance, smart cities and social networks, among others.

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