Italy’s angels&incubators and venture capital weekly roundup. News from Freeda, Cube Labs, The Italian Government, Axa, Lventure, 360 Capital, Digital Magics, Oral 3D, Sixth Continent, Propensione

Italian media company Freeda (AG Digitial Media) raised 15 million euros through an investment round that French venture capital fund Alven led (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Italy’s U-Start, Endeavor Catalyst, family offices and further private investors also poured resources in the company. Unicredit subscribed a 2.5 million five-years loan of which Mcc secured 80% of the issuance that will support Freeda’s plans for international development.

Renato Del Grosso joined Cube Labs, an Italian incubator for life science businesses, as head of market access and board member (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Del Grosso previously worked for MSD, Abbott, Abbvie, Intercept. Gruppo Surace founded Cube-Labs in 2014.

Italian premier Giuseppe Conte said that venture capital funds could boost the technological innovation in Italy (see here a previous post by BeBeez).  Conte said that he aims to incentivise investments in venture capital funds.

Insurance giant AXA joined the Fintech District of Milan as a corporate member (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Such a partnership will allow the startups of the district to boost their innovation and digitalisation. AXA aims to support fintech, insurtech, or high-social impact companies. Patrick Cohen, the ceo of AXA Italia, said that the company aims to play an active role for this partnership with Fintech District.

Three new funds will join the Italian venture capital space (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Step Fund will list on Milan’s MIV segment and pour 0.3 – 1 million euros seed investments in digital startups with a pre-money value below 5 million, said Gennaro Tesone, a partner of Digital Magics, the firm that launched Step Fund. Luigi Capello, the ceo and founder of Milan-listed LVenture, said that he aims to launch a continuity fund for supporting startups in their scaleup stage. Cesare Maifredi, the general partner of 360 Capital Partners, said that he could set up an investment vehicle for supporting businesses in the fields of robotics, software and artificial intelligence that carry on their investment rounds A and B.

Oral 3D, a startup producer of 3D printers for dentists, received an investment of 0.145 million euros from Luiss EnLabs, the accelerator of LVenture Group (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Oral 3D will invest such proceeds for moving its headquarter from the US to Milan.

SixthContinent Europe (SXC), the Italian social e-commerce platform, raised 3.44 million euros through an equity crowdfunding platform on 200Crowd (see here a previous post by BeBeez). SXC pre-money value is of 43.47 million, the campaign’s upper target was initially of 3 million and later increased to 3.5 million. Fabrizio Politi founded SXC in 2010 together with Francesca Roveda,  the ceo of San Francisco-based SixthContinent Inc (SXCI), the owner of SXC. The SXC platform allows its members to increase their purchasing power through a profit-sharing method that also boosts the marketing investments of companies. Top consumer brands like Apple, Netflix, Ikea, and Q8 sell their coupons on SXC. In 2019 SXCI will generate sales of 184.7 million dollars, and reach a turnover of 561.7 million in 2020. The company’s ebitda in 2018 has been of 2 million but will be of 18.4 million in 2019 and 97.3 million in 2020.  In May 2019, SXCI started a fundraising round of 20 million ahead of the launch of an IPO on Nasdaq or Euronext Paris for 1Q20.

Propensione, the fintech startup for integrative pensions that a group of former managers of Italian insurance giant Generali with the support of Palladio Finanziaria Holding, signed a commercial partnership with Amundi (See here a previous post by BeBeez). Amundi will take care of the distribution of Propensione’s open fund SecondaPensione.