Mercato Metropolitano, the Italian startup company born to build and manage small producers, farmers and artisans city markets, is looking for 1.2 million pounds in an equity crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs, starting next week. MF Milano Finanza writes today.
Mercato Metropolitano just opened its new location in London in the Elephant&Castle area a few days ago, housed in a disused paper factory over 45 000 ft large owned by Pebody social housing giant, where the company had invested 1,2 million pound in restructuring works.
Founded by Andrea Rasca, the company has a pre-money valuation of 12 million euros so the campaign is for a 10% stake of the company’s capital. Just a ferw days ago Intesa Sanpaolo bank invested 2 million euros in the company, as a result of a debt to equity conversion, and sold its createdinitalia.com website to Mercato Metropolitano in exchange for a 30% stake in the company, Mr. Rasca explained. The website had been launched in Spring 2015 during the Milan international exibition Expo and had been managed together with Mercato Metropolitano as it is an ecommerce for food&beverage Italian artisans and producers.
As for Massimo Tessitore, head of the integrated multicanal unit of  Intesa Sanpaolo, “this deal perfectly fits with the bank aim to create more value for made in Italy products and to diversificate investments”.
Mr. Rasca also added that the equity crowdfunding campaign, as well as other equity crowdfunding campaigns that will come after this first one, will help the company to finance the opening of new shops all over the World. “We will surely open a second and a third shop in London, we will come back to Milan and open in Rome, and we will go to Brussels and Miami”. the entrepreneur said.
Mr. Rasca also said that its aim for the new London shop is one million pounds in revenues per month as last year its temporary shop in Milano reached 2 million euros per month.
In the future there is also a project for funding a startup accelerator aiming at supporting new artisans businesses applying new technologies to the food&beverage sector. “We are thinking of a specific equity crowdfunding campaign for that project. The accelerator will have to reach a 1.5 million pounds dry powder”, Mr. Rasca added.
