ZesTrip raises €100k in seed funding

Milan, October 1, 2015 - After having helped Italian and foreign tourists facing the Milan Expo, ZesTrip is now preparing for the Jubilee, the event that will bring 33 million tourists and pilgrims in Rome. Now close to covering the whole Italian territory, it prepares to land abroad in the major European capitals. The combination of sharing economy coupled with the social inclination of the platform, which connects the locals with travelers, has also convinced a group of Angel Investors led by Stefano Calderano, currently CEO of JUSP (one of the few Italian startup that has received a venture capital financing with six zeros - read here), to invest over one hundred thousand Euros in the project.

The startup, incubated by PoliHub of the Polytechnic University of Milan, was born earlier this year by the idea of ​​Italian guys under30, Michele Arisi, Andrea Pasino and Carlo Vezzoni, friends since long time and flatmates in Milan, with a passion for travel, as well as sharing and innovation. An idea born from a personal experience. Indeed, the ZesTrip's founders had been traveling, backpacks on their shoulders, for almost two months in Southeast Asia through Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam. Once in Luangprabang, the capital of Laos at the time of French colonialism, they had a dinner invitation from the owner of their B&B where he introduced them to Vong. Vong, was a 30 year old Laotian and one of the few who spoke Inglese. He was smiling and excited for the chance to meet his Western peers. The connection was immediate, and by the time of dessert, they were Already planning to hike for the days to come.

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Octorate raises €500k in Venture Capital Funding from VC-Fund P101 and Business Angel Marco Corradino

Milan, October 1, 2015 - P101, the Milan-based venture capital firm led by Andrea Di Camillo, focused on early-stage investments in the digital space, and Marco Corradino, founder of Bravofly and angel investor active in the field of online travel, co-invested €500k in Octorate, the first Italian software company specializing in technology solutions for the hotel, bed and breakfast and accommodation facilities.

Octorate, born in 2012 from an idea by Fabrizio Scuppa, offers an integrated solution for accommodation facilities to manage the business of  online booking from the positioning of their offers on over 100 international platforms, thus ensuring the autonomy of hoteliers in the selection of the most efficient and profitable booking channels. To this, Octorate supports an expanded range of services for the management of the reservation and all related activities that enable individual hoteliers with a higher autonomy and efficiency in enriching the offer of even smaller facilitied. More than 7,000 accommodation facilities have to date used this solution by managing over €500M of online reservations and other services that the Octorate proprietary technology offers.

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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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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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