AIFI, the Italian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (aifi.it), provides statistics on the activity of venture capital funds every year.
The Italian early stage segment (seed, start-up and scale-up stages) registered a meaningful growth in 2018, both in terms of number of transactions, from 133 in 2017 to 172 in 2018, and in terms of capital invested, from € 133 million in 2017 to € 324 million in 2018.
The average amount invested in Italian early stage companies was € 2,95 million in 2018, against €1,35 million registered in the previous year. Most of the deals were carried out by private domestic investment funds, focused on early stage investments (58% of the total investments), followed by international funds (22%).
If we consider both business angels and VC funds‘ investments, the capital provided to Italian early stage companies was € 521 million in 2018 (+150% from € 208 million registered in 2017), as reported in the Venture Capital Monitor Report, the yearly report produced by VeM, the research centre of LIUC Business School, together with AIFI.
These numbers are consistent with the ones published in report of P101 (an Italian venture capital firm – p101.it) and BeBeez (an online newswire focusing on alternative assets in Italy – bebeez.it), which considers publicly announced fundraising deals, including equity crowdfunding rounds. According to the report, the start-ups and scale-ups based in Italy or founded by Italians (and based abroad) announced fundraising rounds for € 480 million in 2018. These rounds involved 178 companies participated by institutional investors, which have raised a total of € 632 million since the beginning of their operations.
The number of companies that were able to attract significant investments – at least for the Italian market – has increased: 31 companies announced rounds of more than 3 million, raising in total more than € 400 million; among these 12 companies announced rounds of more than 10 million, raising in total more than € 316 million.
List of rounds of more than € 10 million
| Company | Industry | Investors 2018 Round | Amount 2018 Round |
| Prima Assicurazioni | Insurtech | Goldman SachsPrivate Capital, Backstone Tactical Opportunities Fund | 100 million |
| Moneyfarm (UK based) | Fintech | Allianz Asset Management, Endeavor Catalyst, Fondazione Sardegna, United Ventures, Cabot Square | 46 million |
| Cuebiq (spin-off of Beintoo – US based) | Business Intelligence | Goldman Sachs Principal Strategic Investments, Nasdaq Ventures, DRW Venture Capital, Tribeca Venture Partners, Tribeca Angels, TLcom Capital | 27 million |
| EryDel | Biotech | Soffinova Partners, Genextra, Innogest | 26,5 million |
| Coreview (former 4word365) | Software | Insight Venture Partners | 20 million |
| Depop | Fashion e-commerce | Octopus Ventures, TempoCap, Balderton, Creandum, HV Holtzbrinck Ventures, Red Circle, Lumar | 20 million |
| Medical Microinstruments | Medtech | Andera Partners, Panakes Partners, Fountain Healthcare, Sambatech, Gus Castello, John Engels | 20 million |
| Satispay | Fintech | Iccrea, Banca di Piacenza, Copper Street Capital, Endeavor Catalyst, Greyhound Capital, Banca Valsabbina, Sparkasse, Club degli Investitori di Torino | 15 million |
| Supermercato24 | E-commerce consumer | FII Tech Growth, Endeavor Catalyst, 360 Capital Partners, Innogest | 13 million |
| Credimi | Fintech | United Ventures, Vertis Venture 2 Scaleup | 10 million |
| BrumBrum | E- commerce cars | United Ventures | 10 million |
| Freeda Media (AG Digital Media) | Media | Alven Capital, U-Start, Khaled Helioui, Stefano Sala, Henri Moissinac | 10 million |
The exit front is also improving. The number of divestments is still very low, but few international industrial operators started looking at Italian companies: it is the case of the German TUI Group, which acquired Musement, and the Spanish Force Manager, which acquired Sellf.
SOURCES:
You can find the detailed statistics produced by AIFI in the Report “AIFI market data 2018” at the following link: https://www.aifi.it/en/studi-ricerche/dati-mercato/
The VeM Report (in Italian) at the following link: http://www.privateequitymonitor.it/rapporti_vem.php
The comments on the P101-BeBeez 2018 Report at the following link: https://bebeez.it/en/2019/05/16/venture-capital-italy-startups-like-serie-b-rounds-report-p101-bebeez-sui-dati-2018/
And the P101-BeBeez 2018 Report (in Italian) at the following link: https://bebeez.it/files/2013/01/P101-report-venture-capital-2018-completo.pdf