In the last 15 years, as European business risk capital has shifted to higher speed, one way to help a nation ecosystem bloom to invest in founders from this country, no matter where they were based. This would help review the business mentality back home. In Europe, the approach was partly pioneered by Paris Kima Ventures. Now, a new business business is hoping to reproduce this idea from Italy.
CavityOne of Italy’s most active private VCs begins his second fund, with hard covers of 75m euros, especially to support the Italian founders inside and abroad.
The field-of-the-public fund comes from its organizers Italian Technological Weekheld annually in Turin, which hosted Sam Altman, Reid Hoffman and Elon Musk, among others.
The event was initially started by the Fiat Scion John Elkann family, president of Vento, as well as President of Stelantis (Fiat’s parent company) and Exor (the Agnelli family portfolio, which controls Fiat and other assets).
It is understandable to someone in his situation, Elkann has an extensive network in both Europe and Silicon Valley, which he helps bring to ITW. So it may be no coincidence that Vento’s Investment Committee includes such technology veterans such as Diego Piacentini, Mike Volpi (formerly Index Ventures) and Jean de la Rochebrocard. Ironically, Rachebrochard recently joined the same Kima business that Vento hopes to imitate, since he was controversial was removed From Newwave, a French business uniform, last year.
To date, Vento has already invested in 100 startups, including Bee, Jethr and Qomodo. Fund II plans to invest in 375 investments over five years, the company said.
Diyala d’Aveni, chief executive of Vento, told TechCrunch for a call that “Italy is far behind compared to other European countries, but we believe that the trajectory is the same with others. That’s why we do this. Italian technological week is a way to bring people out of Italy, Italian founders and see the capabilities of the Italian ecosystem and inspire the talent in Italy to build their own companies.
Added D’Aveni, “there is no lack of capital. It is a lack of companies, but we just need some stories of success and then the whole bullet will start and see what we saw in France.”
The Italian Technological Week is useful in this strategy, allowing Vento to evaluate over 3,500 newly established companies that apply to the event, maintaining a selective 2.5% conversion rate with standardized tickets of 150,000 euros and some investments.
But what was the problem with the previous Italian founders of technology that Elkann thought this fund would solve this fund?
“When we started Vento’s first fund in 2022, we recognized that Italy’s technological and business potential was significant sub -service,” he told Techcrunch.
“The Italian founders have always shown an excellent … business spirit, but the ecosystem was not there. Vento was created to face this gap, providing not only capital, but a comprehensive platform that combines direct investment, business building and network development through the Italian technological week.”
However, the Italian law of the company is often considered less favorable to start -ups compared to the United Kingdom or US vehicles. Will the newly established businesses expect Vento’s funds to be Italy-adopted or will it be agnostic?
“Our main commitment is to detect excellent Italian founders and support them on their world business journey,” he said. “Italy is taking significant steps to become increasingly competitive in the international technology landscape and we are sure that soon these regulatory differences between countries will become less and less relevant.”
To be fair, Italy’s technological scene is improving. According to Trading dataBusiness capital investments in Italian businesses amounted to $ 5.72 billion in the last five years (2020 to 2024), greater than a triple increase from the past five years, when it reached only $ 1.7 billion.
D’Aveni added that there were already plans to approach internationally: “We already have a network of founders other than Italy sending us agreements, as well as micro-communities of Italians in New York, London, Berlin and Paris, among others.”
