Question
We are startup company from Italy. Our product is in the field of cybersecurity and our customers are in Europe right now. We have a certain amount of seed capital and a little revenue, but we need more finances to grow. All of the information at the Internet is about US. What are good fundraising options in Italy?
Answers: 1 public & 1 private
happy to share my experience with you guys. I have been working in VC and PE in Italy since 2000 and now I moved in Hong Kong.
in Italy there are few options for your startup. it depends from the size of your financial needs.
for less than 0.5m eur you can look business angels and incubators and if you surf the web you can find: Business Angels: www.iban.it (Italian association for Business angels, they organize event and awards),
INCUBATORS: I will mention few, but I am pretty sure there are many now: I) SeedLab and M31, recently merged. Quadrivio (a leading VC and PE firm I work with) is one of the shareholders
ii) h-farm iii) polihub (you should talk with Stefano Mainetti, a good friend of mine)
For fund raising targeting more than half a million, you have to talk with VCs.
In Italy in the last few years many started to raise money for Venture Capital, but the market is very selective as the number of VCs in Italy is much lower compared to France, UK, and USA.
you can find a list of VCs on www.aifi.it, which is Italian association of VC and PE.
I will mention few that are those in the market since a long time: TT Venture (Quadrivio fund), 360 capital, Innogest, united ventures etc.
if you are targeting 2/3m capital increase, and you are not expert enough on VC technicalities (ie preferred shares, liquidation preference, veto righst, drag/tag etc.) I strongly recommend you to find a good advisor and/or lawyer, assisting you in this process.
If you think your venture would be attractive for international fund raising, I suggest in any case to raise part of the money in Italy, as the market is growing and if you cannot raise money in your own country, it is a very bad sign for international VCs which generally speaking do not invest far away from their area, if they do not have a local co-investor.
happy to have an informal meeting or drink next time I will be in Italy, from 9 to 19 nov 2015. let me know if you are interested and we will catch up.
ciao, in bocca al lupo!
gl
Recent questions
I sometimes see questions on forums like Quora about how to stop people stealing your invention i...
4 5386 2I am looking for useful sources on protecting copyright. I am in the process of writing a book ba...
3 6115 2What is the current wisdom on compiling news feeds on a third party website so far as copyright i...
1 3962 0This might be a silly question but I’m a bit confused by ‘prior disclosure’ as it applies to pate...
2 4824 1Do you have a question about your invention or intellectual property?
Search the questions below or post your enquiry to one of our experts via Directory.
(User questions are no longer posted publicly on this page.)