(Finance) – Italian Founders Fund (IFF) is bornThe first Italian Venture Capital fund created by founders for founders. IFF is supported by numerous Italian entrepreneurs of different generations, experiences and skills, united in the vision of investing and financing the talent and commitment of a new generation of excellence, with the aim of developing, nurturing and increasing the digital ecosystem and of innovation in the country. These were joined by around twenty family offices and some of the best professionals in the Italian ecosystem, we read in a note.
The bottom, with a collection already achieved of over 50 million euros of entirely private capital, has a target of 60 million euros. The initiative was born within Koinos Capital SGR.
Italian Founders Fund operates with a lead investor strategy in the pre-seed and seed phase on innovative startups founded by Italian entrepreneurs, in Italy or abroad, or foreign startups interested in growth on the Italian market.
IFF is characterized by a participatory and collaborative approach: on the one hand IFF makes the skills, experiences, time and network of its investor base available to its portfolio companies; on the other hand, founder investors are an active part of the process of reporting investment opportunities and analysis. Furthermore, IFF is characterized as a privileged gateway for international funds that want to invest in the country, through direct active involvement in co-investment.
Italian Founders Fund aims to finalize 25 operations over its durationwith investments per individual company worth between 500 thousand and 1.5 million euros and the possibility of a further 2.5 million euros in subsequent rounds.
The fund has the first two investments have already been finalized actually innovative like JetHR – tech company created to break down the bureaucracy linked to personnel management which was the largest pre-seed round in Italy with an IFF co-investment with Exor Ventures and which, a few months after its birth, has already reached 1 million euros of recurring revenue, ranking in the top 10% of the world’s fastest-growing Software As a Service startups – e Glaut, active in the sector of market research and surveys using artificial intelligence, which announced the round with the participation of various international funds and angels. In addition, three new transactions are already being finalized.
Driving the fund IFF, Lorenzo Franzi, already a partner of Global Founders Capital, the VC fund of Rocket Internet – one of the largest European digital groups – and, behind him, an important international professional path in investment banking followed by an experience as founder of a digital startup. “I believe it is an important sign of maturity of the Italian digital ecosystem exactly as has happened in other countries where the presence of VC funds fueled by private capital and the experience of successful founders is definitely an expression of an ecosystem that is maturing and growing” , commented Franzi.
“This type of founders’ fund is already present in markets where innovation is strongly at the center of industrial development policies – he said Marco Morgese, CEO of Koinos Capital SGR – We see them in the USA with Founders Fund, which is almost 20 years old, but also in Europe where 10x founders operate in Germany, in France with Galion.exe, in Scandinavia with ByFounders and Dutch Founders Fund in Holland. From this perspective of the centrality of innovation for the industrial development of the country, the IFF project is the natural evolution of Koinos from a management company focused on private equity activities for small and medium-sized Italian companies to a multi-asset platform”.
Among over 100 founders involved, all prominent names, include the founders of some of the most important players in the Italian digital and entrepreneurial world. Unicorns but also companies currently listed or successful exits, and entrepreneurs aged 24 to 65 from all over the area, who have decided to join the project such as: Giuseppe Amitrano (Dils), Gabriele Antonelli (SpazioDati), Marcello Ascani (Flatmates Agency ), Alessandro Ballerio (Elmec Informatica), Michele Barbera (SpazioDati), Paolo Barletta (Arsenale Group), Luca Barsotti (Spazio Dati), Paolo Basilico (Kairos Group), Francesco Beraldi (Alkemy), Ludovico Callerio (Testbusters), Fabio Cannavale (lastminute.com), Michele Casucci (Certilogo), Pietro Cavalchini (RealStep), Michela Colli (TWT), Andrea Colombo (Tulou), Davide Dattoli (Talent Garden), Matteo de Brabant (JAKALA), Paolo De Nadai (WeRoad), Marco De Rossi (WeSchool), Luca De Vito (Link HR), Riccardo Donadon (H-Farm), Luca Ferrari (Bending Spoons), Luca Foresti (Santagostino), Alessandro Fracassi (Multiply), Marco Franciosa (Next 14), Francesco Fumagalli (Koinos Capital), Andrea Giannangelo (iubenda), Enrico Giacomelli (Namirial), Carlo Gualandri (Soldo), Danilo Iervolino (Multiversity), Matteo Lai (Empatica), Elena Lanati (Indicon ), Marco Magnocavallo (Tannico), Simone Mancini (Scalapay), Roberto Marazzini (Boolean Careers), Luca Mascaro (Sketchin), Giuliano Messina (SosTariffe), Andrea Mignanelli (Cerved Group), Giacomo Moiso (Fluentify), Roberto Nicastro (Bank Aidexa), Diego Palano (Spiagge.it), Daniele Perito (Faire), Jacopo Pertile (AzzurroDigitale), Marco Pescarmona (Moltiply), Stefano Portu (ShopFully), Ivan Ranza (Epicode), Daniele Ratti (Invoices in Cloud), Donato Romano (La Piadineria), Luca Rossettini (D-Orbit), Enrico Saraval (Comdata), Federico Sargenti (Everli), Stefano Sirolli (RealStep), Davide Tavaniello (Hippocrates Holding), Paolo Tramonti (Bios Line), Fabio Troiani (BIP ), Marco Trombetti (Translated), Marco Vittorelli (Openjobmetis), Francesco Zaccariello (Atida eFarma), Riccardo Zacconi (King.com), Giada Zhang (Mulan Group).