According to Social Innovation Monitor (SIM), there are 1,014 Business Angels (BA) in Italy, 53% of which belong to a Business Angel Group.
In 2020, Social Innovation Monitor (SIM) conducted a research on the Italian BA profile and investment approach. The research was carried out in collaboration with several Italian BA associations: Angels4Impact, Angels for Women, Club degli Investitori, Doorway, Italian Angels for Growth (IAG) and Social Innovation Teams (SIT).
The typical Italian BA is a man between 40 and 60 years, with a high level of education and professional experience (51% managers; 25% entrepreneurs; 19% consultants). Only 14% of Italian BAs are women.
Almost 70% of the identified BAs are located in northern Italy. Lombardy is the region with the highest number of Business Angels, followed by Piedmont and Lazio.
The research team analysed in-depth the investment approach of a representative sample of 251 BAs.
Most of the surveyed BAs (60%) invest predominantly in Italy; on average, they invest in 2,5 companies per year (figure 2019).
The average investment ticket per BA is € 139k (figure 2019). However, the median investment is much lower, € 35k (figure 2019), meaning that there are few BAs investing large amounts of money into startups.
Most of the surveyed BAs (75%) are still “Beginner Angels”, having each of them less than 10 startups in their portfolios. The “Experienced Angels” (investors with more than 10 startups in their portfolios) represent 21% of the surveyed BAs.
The most attractive sectors for Italian BAs are digital services and ICT (44% of total surveyed BAs), biotech and healthcare (35%) and fintech and big data tech (21%).
Many Italian BAs invest not only for financial reasons, but also for social reasons: 54% of the surveyed BAs also support companies with a significant social impact. 82% of them are “Impact First Angels”, meaning that they invest in undercapitalised sectors or accept lower-than-market economic returns, to favour a higher social impact.
SUBSCRIBE TO THE SCALEUPITALY NEWSLETTER
You can find the report (in Italian) is available at the following link: https://socialinnovationmonitor.com/en/report-impact-italian-business-angels/