Docsity raised €400k from a group of business angels

Docsity, a Turin, Italy-based online platform that offers a complete service of tutoring for high school and university exams, has received €400k from seven angel investors to support its growth abroad. Among the new investors there are Eric Wahlforss, the co-founder of Soundcloud a provider of a platform that allows musicians to collaborate, promote and distribute their music, Naren Shaam, the founder of Goeuro a fast-growing startup that provides a service to integrate schedules and costs of all means of transport and the product manager for Dropbox. Among other investor there are a Frenchman, a New Yorker and some Italians.

Born in 2011 to allow high school and university students to share notes in an easy and fast way, and established in 2013 as a company by Riccardo Ocleppo, a 30 years-old electrical engineer from Turin, Docsity is a innovative startup with a team of 11 people (average age 27 years) and with 1.2M registered users. The community is growing with an average of 1.5k new registrations a day and has available an archive of 450k notes and over 1M learning resources shared by users.

In 2014 Docsity was awarded in Dubai with the Next Generation Award as most interesting cultural startup of the  moment.

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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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DoveConviene raises €10M Series C Funding from Highland Capital Partners Europe

Do you like leaflets? I would say yes, and I bet that, on this days, before to go shopping you always throw an eye on the leaflet of your supermarket. After all, when it comes to an important purchase to do, such as a notebook or a smartphone it is always better to consult a leaflet, whether in paper or electronic format...you can't miss the opportunity, especially when you can save a bunch of money. Try to think about all the leaflets which are left into your postbox, the majority of which you end up throwing away because not interesting for you personal purchase decisions. What if there would be a digital platform just gathering together all these leaflets out there, which you could just find the best offers based on your ZIP code, being able to consult all the offers of the shops which are in your surroundings and, on top of that, you could even receive an e-mail alert which informs you about the best offers just based on your preferences. Even better if it is available via app directly on your Apple or Android device.

Well all the above described, is not an utopia, but just a smart idea, or better said, a good business model which has attracted the interest of one of Europe's leading VC funds. 

Indeed, DoveConviene a Milan, Italy-based the digital platform driving users around the globe to shop by saving money through offers and leaflets presented in a "georeferenced" manner, has raised €10M in Series C funding from Highland Capital Partners Europe, which represents one of the highest investments ever made by a foreign VC operator in an Italian  startup in the digital space.

The investment round was led by Highland Capital Partners Europe, which joins the existing investors Principia SGR, 360 Capital Partners and Merifin Capital. Back in 2013 DoveConviene raised €3.5 million in a Series A funding round from Principia II, the closed-end fund managed by Principia SGR, representing at that time the most important investment among those made by Principia SGR, followed by the €5.2M Series B financing round of last December 2014 led 360 Capital Partners and Merifin Capital which rendered more solid the development plan both in the italian as well as international markets. The new investment round provides a further boost to the growth plan of the Italian company - which has so far raised €20M in total funding -, which aims to deploy the raised funds to expand in Italy and abroad, increasing its workforce to 200 employees and being present in 10 countries by the end of 2016.

Based on the new development plan, the company has decides

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Fatture in Cloud sells Majority Stake to TeamSystem for €1.5M

Pesaro, 23 September 2015 - TeamSystem, leader in the development and distribution of software and services for professionals and SMEs, has acquired a 51% majority stake in Fatture in Cloud, a Bergamo-based innovative startup founded by the 23 years old Daniele Ratti, that aims to revolutionize the world of electronic invoicing for small businesses and professionals with over 40,000 users acquired in a little more just after a year of operations.

€ 1.5M of initial investment with an earn-out (formula through which the payment of the purchase price of a company or of a share it is bound to certain economic, financial or equity conditions) that will be determined depending on the results that the startup will achieve in the next five years: "Fatture in Cloud - says Federico Leproux, CEO of TeamSystem group - is a strategic pillar for us to manage the interconnected system that streamlines the billing process of SMEs and digitalize it, connecting all the players in the system: from the company, to accountants, up to the bank." A simple and accessible service, downloadable from a store on smartphones and tablets, like any other app.

Despite having acquired the majority shares

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Innogest announces Capital II final closing at €85M

Innogest SGR has carried out the final closing of the Innogest Capital II fund at about €85M. Thanks to this achievement, that exceeds the original Euro €80M target, Innogest is confirmed as the leading venture capital firm in Italy. Fondo Italiano d’Investimento is among the investors which have supported this closing. 

«We are engaged in supporting and developing leading startups» – said Claudio Giuliano, founder and managing partner of Innogest SGR – «and Fondo Italiano d’Investimento reinforces our ability to support our companies in their growth path with adequate capital investment. We are determined to create a strong ecosystem, also actively co-investing with the most qualified players. We are tuning our areas of specialization in order to better assess business projects, to follow companies with deep domain expertise and to develop steady relationships with the best international technology investors. Along these lines, Innogest keeps growing: in 2015, Michele Novelli as partner and Richard Belluzzo as venture partner, have joined our team. We aim to strengthen our expertise and our network in those areas where innovation is designed and the funds are the best available, Europe and the US in particular».

«Investing in Innogest Capital II» said Gabriele Cappellini, CEO of Fondo Italiano d’Investimento, «is part of our strategy to support the creation in Italy of a steady and unfading venture capital market, through

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GreenBone raises €3M from ZernikeMeta Ventures and Italian Angels for Growth (IAG)

Faenza, 18 September 2015 - GreenBone a medtech startup has raised €3M in a Series A funding round led ZernikeMeta Ventures, a finance company specialized in the finance for the innovation and creation of new companies, via its  Ingenium Emilia-Romagna fund,  some angels Italian Angels for Growth (IAG), the largest group of business angels in Italy active since 2007 in the development of new businesses and with the contribution of some private investors,  Italian and foreigners.

GreenBone Ortho srl, an innovative startup according to the Italia law, was founded in March 2014 in Faenza (Emilia-Romagna) and is led by Lorenzo Pradella - Co-Founder and CEO&COO. 

The company wants to become a worldwide leader for biomimetics by providing innovative

and easy to use lifelike inspired solutions that will help cure severe diseases.

GreenBone develops a highly innovative wood derived bone implants technology, to generate biomimetic – reabsorbable– load bearing implant  suitable to address severe high morbidity condition including non-union fractures, through a breakthrough technology that foresees the realization of bone implants derived from natural structures such as the wood, with extraordinary

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Smart Payments: Satispay, raised €3M in Venture Funding from Existing Investors

Milan, 18 Septermber 2015 - Satispay, the italian answer to Apple Pay, is a young company specialized in the field of mobile e-payments,  that continues to increase its investments. Co-founded in 2013 by Alberto Dalmasso, Dario Brignone and Samuel Pinta, and active on the market since early this year, Satispay has managed to attract major investments in a short time not only from Italy, but also from the UK, Germany, and the Silicon Valley.  After having raised €400k in June 2013 from friends and relatives of the three foundes, as well as further €5.1M in September 2014, subscribed by institutional investors, including Iccrea Bank, the company announced today that it has received a further €3M investment, bringing the overall investment to a total of €8.5M. 

The market entry, the first positive results and the strong interest shown in the service from large international merchants convinced both the first investors, who have exercised their pre-emptive rights to subscribe for this new capital increase, as well as new partners interested in financing the project on the basis of the extremely clear and innovative vision and the great growth potential that characterize it. Indeed, successful entrepreneurs and managers like Jonathan Weiner and Ray Iglesias (founders of the project Google Wallet and Money2020), Nicola Carbonari (founder of Autoscout24), Giuseppe Donagemma (Vice President Networks of Samsung Electronics), and Iccrea Bank, signed both capital increases. The latter, i.e. the Central Institute of Cooperative Credit, provides the payment service using the Satispay technology platform serving, more than 6 million customers in Italy. Iccrea is also a center with strong technological expertise and know-how on electronic payments, which saw in the project Satispay an investment in innovation with high potential.

The goal is ambitious: to become within five years

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H-Farm eyes IPO on the AIM Italia

H-FARM, the first Italian private digital venture incubator - halfway between an incubator and a VC -, ten years after its foundation is ready to go public on AIM Italia the market of the italian stock exchange specifically created to enable small and medium-size Italian enterprises which wish to invest in their growth and have a high growth potential to access capital markets. The process kick-started with a series of financial and company moves. Beyond the international reorganization of the company structure, implemented in the last months, the Treviso-based digital platform founded by Riccardo Donadon with the goal of helping young entrepreneurs in launching their initiatives based on innovative business models in the Internet sector and to support the transformation of the Italian companies in a digital perspective, has completed two important steps. 

After launching two convertible bonds, the first of €15M (fully subscribed by existing shareholders) and the second of €4M, the startup incubator appointed the teams of consultants that will take it on AIM Italia. According to market rumors, the listing of H-Farm on the stock exchange will be by accompanied by the advisor N+1 Syz, the (nomad) nominated adviser Banca Intermobiliare and Unicredit (already shareholder of the company) as global coordinator. The listing on the Milan's stock exchange will take place in autumn. Provided that the storm that in recent days has shaken international markets do not advice to change the schedule of the IPO. The landing on the stock exchange is the completion of a process that began ten years ago and is a major milestone for a public company such as H-Farm.

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Tiassisto24 raises €350k from LVenture Group

New round of funding for TiAssisto24, the app that assists in road accidents. LVenture Group participated with FIRA - Finanziaria Regionale Abruzzese - and several Business Angels in a co-investment in TiAssisto24, startup that solves all problems related to the use of cars and motorcycles, for a total of €350k.
TiAssisto24 is a platform that simplifies life to motorists helping them to save money and time and providing them with best services. The startup will receive the investment in two tranches, the first of €250k and the second of €100k. LVenture Group is committed to a total investment of 75 thousand Euros. €250k will be provided by the Finanziaria Regionale Abruzzese (FIRA), under the call "StartUp StartHope" call, dedicated to the creation and growth of innovative enterprises. The remaining amount comes instead from some business angels.
"With this investment, we will have the needed resources to implement the business and technology roadmap - explains Michele Romagnoli, CEO of TiAssisto24 -. We want to become the first player in Italy in the independent assistance to motorists, thatnks to launch in each town of value-added services such as 'SOS fines' and the network of personal assistants."

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LVenture launches Angel Partner Group

Network, selected investment opportunities, business education: these are the three pillars which underpin Angel Partner Group, the new association officially presented at Luiss Enlabs in front of a selected audience of more than 100 potential investors. The association was founded on initiative of LVenture Group, a holding company listed on the Italian Stock Exchange, with the aim of bringing and growing together a community of investors who believe in the social value created by innovation. Domenico Nesci - presenting for the first time the new association of which he is President - said, "APGroup has strong international vocation. We want to cross the Italian border and immediately create a network of investors globally"A network of high-level and  global reach, therefore, within whom shareholders, thanks to networking events and a digital platform, can interact fueling personal and professional relationships, sharing investment opportunities and creating new business ventures." 

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