Italy’s angels & incubators, venture capital and fintech weekly roundup. News from Talent Garden, CrowdFundMe, Republic of Malta, H-Farm, Cesynt

Italian startups ecosystem keeps a steady level of activity and growth

Talent Garden, an European platform for networking and digital training, raised a mega-funding round worth 44 million euros (see here a previous post by BeBeez). StarTIP, part of Gianni Tamburi’s Tamburi Investments Partners, acted as lead investor. Italian investors and family offices such as Angelini, D’Amico, Dompè, Drago, Foglia, Ginatta, Holland, Luti, Monti, Pittini, Rovati, il fondo Indaco Ventures, Club degli Investitori, and BeConsulting poured resources in the company together with Silicon Valley’s venture capital Social Capital that Chamath Palihapitiya, the former Facebook’s head of growth, created.  Davide Dattoli is the ceo and founder of Talent Garden which has sales of 8.9 million. Talent Garden expansion was supported from the start by the Digital Magics incubator (participated by Tamburi Investment Partners). 

Italian equity crowdfunding platform CrowdFundMe filed documents for listing on Milan Aim on 25 March 2019 (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Directa sim is handling the placement for the retail investors, while EnVent Capital Markets is the company’s nominated advisor, Chiomenti the legal advisor, Studio tributario associato Facchini, Rossi & Soci the tax advisor, and Deloitte the auditor. Tommaso Baldissera Pacchetti created CrowdFundMe in 2013.

In February, Italy, with the conversion of the so-called Decreto Semplificazioni (Simplification Decree) into law, introduced the concepts of blockchain and smart contract, thus assigning them a legal value (see here a previous post by BeBeez) and the independent but Italy-enclaved Republic of San Marino enacted the Delegated Decree Blockchain  (see here a previous post by BeBeez)  But Malta Republic is not far behind, a fter launching its ad hoc legislation at the beginning of June 2018, which came into force last November. The legislation and its opportunities were illustrated last March 5 in Milan in a meeting promoted by the Embassy of the Republic of Malta and by FinanceMalta, the private public initiative to promote Malta as an international financial center. The country aims to become the island of the blockchain and to make sure that the blockchain economy is worth 10% of the Maltese GDP (see here a previous post by BeBeez).

H-Farm signed a joint venture with LiquidD consultancy for the launch of H-Farm Bcn, a Barcelona innovation centre (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Aleix Valls is the ceo of this jv (H-Farm 51%, LiquiD 49%). H-Farm cofounders Riccardo Donadon and Maurizio Rossi previously stated that the company aims to grow in foreign markets. H-Farm generates abroad 13% of its sales of above 50 million of euros.

Cesynt Advanced Solutions, an Italian provider of professional training that raised 250k euros in June 2018 on equity crowdfunding platform Opstart, will pay to the equity crowdfunding investors a dividend worth in the region of 20% of the raised resources (see here a previous post by BeBeez). This is the first time it happens as for a company which raised capital on an equity crowdfunding platform. The company’s board made such a decision as it generated revenues of 2 million ahead of 2020, said CrowdfundingBuzz. Armando Miele founded Cesynt and signed a partnership with Collega, an Italian startup that allows professionals to collaborate. After such agreement, Cesynt may launch a further equity crowdfunding campaign.