Over the past 15 years, when European Venture capital has switched to higher equipment, one of the ways to assist the national flourishing of the ecosystem was investing in the founders from this country, regardless of where they resisted. This would help to again see the enterprising way of pondering at home. In Europe, the approach was partly pioneer through Paris Kim Ventures. Now the new Venture company hopes to repeat this concept from Italy.
VentoOne of the most lively private VCS in Italy introduces its second fund, in a hard level of EUR 75 million, especially to support the Italian founders of startups at home and abroad.
The sector-emergency fund comes from the organizers Italian Technology Week (ITW), held annually in (*75*), in which Altman, Reid Hoffman and Elon Musk hosted, among others.
The event was originally launched by the Fiat Family Scion John Elkann, chairman of Vento, in addition to chairman of Stellantis (mother company FIAT) and EXOR (Holding Company of the Agnella family, which controls FIAT and other assets).
Understandable for someone with his status, Elkann has an extensive network in each Europe and the Silicon Valley, which ITW helps. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that the Vento Investment Committee includes such technology industry veterans as Diego Piacentini, Mike Volpi (previously index projects) and Jean de la Rochebrohard. Ironically, Rochebrochat has recently joined the same Kim’s undertaking, which Vento hopes to mimic, after the controversial Removed Last yr with Newwave, a French undertaking.
Until now, Vento has already invested in 100 startups, including Bee, Jethr and Qomodo. Fund II plans to speculate in 375 investments in five years, said the company.
Diyala d’Eveni, general director of Vento, said Techcrunch regarding the call that “Italy is behind in comparison with other European countries, but we think that the trajectory is the same as others. That’s why we do it. For us, the Italian Technology Week is a way to bring people from outside Italy, on one side to force amazing investors to meet with Italian founders and see the potential of the Italian ecosystem and inspire talents in Italy to build their own companies. We believe that the fact that there is not many success stories in Italy is in a sense preventing the development of the ecosystem. “
He added d’Aveni: “There is no shortage of capital. This is the lack of companies, but we only need success history, and then the entire flywheel will start and we will see what we saw in France. “
The Italian Technology Week is used for this strategy, enabling Vento to judge over 3,500 startups that apply to the appearance at the party, maintaining a selective 2.5% conversion factor with a standardized ticket size of EUR 150,000 and with some investments.
But what was the problem with the previous Italian founders of technology, which Elkann thought that this fund solved?
“When we launched the first Vento fund in 2022, we noticed that the technological and enterprising potential was significantly underestimated,” said Techcrunch.
“The Italian founders have always demonstrated a unique … spirit of entrepreneurship, but the ecosystem was not there. Vento was created to take care of this gap, providing not only capital, but a comprehensive platform that combines direct investments, building a project and network development through the Italian Technology Week. “
However, the law of an Italian company is often considered less favorable for the founders of startups in comparison with British or American vehicles. Does he expect that startups that finance Vento, which can be dominated by Italy, or will they be agnostic?
“Our main commitment is to identify unique Italian founders and support them in their global entrepreneurship travel,” he said. “Italy is making significant progress to become more and more competitive in the international technology landscape and we are convinced that soon these regulatory differences between countries will become less and less important.”
To be honest, the Italian technological scene is improving. According to Transaction dataVenture Capital Investments in Italian startups have been $ 5.72 billion in the last five years (2020-2024), which is greater than a three -time increase in comparison with the previous five years, when it reached only $ 1.7 billion.
D’Eveni added that it is already planned to achieve the international arena: “We already have a network of founders from outside Italy, who send, among others, offers, as well as the microcommists of Italy in New York, London, Berlin and Paris.”