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.

Read More

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. 

Read More

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.

Read More

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.

Read More

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. 

Read More

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. 

Read More

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.

Read More

New Vision Raises €6.3M in Series A funding to boost international expansion

Nicola Meneghello, Founder of New Vision

Piazzola sul Brenta,  September 16th, 2014 - Nicola Meneghello, 36 years old, represents a new generation of Italian startupper: it doesn't mimic californians if not in the look (t-shirt and jacket) and does not attempt to replicate, in miniature, what big brothers in places like San Francisco, Tel Aviv, Berlin or London do. 

It solves problems (a little as the Wolf character in Pulp Fiction, although, fortunately, here it comes to other issues related to the dialogue between cloud platforms). 

When he was young, Nico Meneghello wanted to design bridges. He had entered the Faculty of Construction Engineering of the University of Padua. "I was a boy of the late 70's who grew up with Lego and Playmobil. The idea of ​​building I had always liked." said Menegnello in an interview with Economyup.it. Then, at age 22, after four years of study, he understood that his future was not in construction but in the digital space. It was in 2000 when Meneghello he left Faculty of Engineering, to become an entrepreneur (he was still missing seven exams). Today it can be said to have done well to follow his animal spirits since the in 2000 in Padua founded New Vision has grown to reach 50 employees. 

It is that why probably he convinced  a pool of investors led by Innogest SGR to tip on the development of New Vision, the company that "renders smart" digital contents and simplifies their management, by closing the biggest

Read More

Prestiamoci Raises €450K in Equity Funding from Digital Magics and other Investors

Prestiamoci the only Italian startup having a license, as holding company, released by the Bank of Italy for the management of a online P2P lending platform, has raised €107k as part of a €450k capital increase from Digital Magics, the certified venture incubator of innovative startups listed at the AIM Italia segment of the Italian stock exchange, along with Italian and international investors. Thanks to the Prestiamoci web platform, investors can lend resources to private persons and companies in a very transparent way, with the professional skills in the credit management typic of the banking system. 

Thanks to this funding, Prestiamoci will focus on the growth of the company, launching campaigns as well as marketing  and communication activities to strengthen brand awareness and acquire new lenders and applicants. 

The venture incubator has participated in this operation by investing EUR

107,000 continuing to support the innovative startup with the members of the Board of Prestiamoci and other investors, including both European and American private and institutional operators, experts in the field of P2P lending, and members of the Digital Magics Angel Network, who took part at the previous capital increase in October 2013, when Prestiamoci raised €550k from Digital Magics and a pool of private investors. As of today the total investment made by Digital Magics in Prestiamoci amounts to €297k, while the overall raised funds by Prestiamoci amount to €1M.  

The Digital Magics Angel Network is a network of

Read More

Oakley Capital Private Equity acquires Majority Stake in Facile.it

Milan, 19 September 2014 - Milan-based price comparison website Facile.it, Italy’s #1 destination for consumers to make informed decisions about their motor insurance, household expenses and personal finance has sold its 75% controlling stake to British investment group Oakley Capital Private Equity. 

Founded in 2008, with a portfolio of gross written premia of €260m and over 580k clients Facile.it is by far the country’s largest (online and offline) motor insurance broker. Its strong insurance position is increasingly leveraged in other related verticals like ADSL, Gas & Power, Bank Accounts and, from mid-2014, also Cellular contracts. Well-known household brand with 80% (prompted) brand recognition and 20% “top of mind” (twice that of the nearest competitor), with average of 1.4m unique visitors and 2.1m visits per month.

Overall, the valuation of the portal run by a highly experienced management team led by CEO Mauro Giacobbe and managed by Angelica Pelizzari exceeds the 100 million euro. It is a bet that of Oakley on the Italian market, where the price paid is equal to 25 times EBITDA of 2013 (€4.02 million) of Facile.it, and more than three times the consolidated turnover of last year (€30.9 million). But for the fund with British background the acquisition is strategic because it already holds in its portfolio the reference participation in the main German price comparison website, Verivox. Therefore, it opens up for the Italian portal prospects for growth and international development, thanks to the capital of the new reference shareholder, who made ​​its debut as investor in the Italian market.

And to get particular benefit from the sale are Barbara, Eleonora and Luigi Berlusconi who through Holding Italia Quattordicesima, the vehicle that holds the 21.42% of Fininvest, in 2011 invested a few million in Facile.it. At the end of 2013, the participation of 20.39% in the portal was budgeted at a value of €6.37 million. This allows the three children of former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi to cash a robust gain of nearly €14 million, as demonstration of the goodness and foresight and investment. 

The challenge of Oakley, it's all in the potential of Facile.it, that at the end of first half of 2014 saw a 28% jump in overall revenues, with the EBITDA increasing by even 108%. Among other things, the company that owns the portal does not currently have any debt towards the Italian banking system, and has a net cash position of €1.6 million (as at 31 December 2013). Facile.it which employs 126 people expects to achieve over €35m of revenues and over €8m of EBITDA in 2014. 

OCPE will help Facile.it expand its operations and accelerate business development.

Read More