Dear All,
Summer is here and we are almost ready to take a break from our laptops and get some well-deserved rest after a few intense months.
We have a lot to share about our new investments, not only in startups but also in PoCs (we bet some of you don't know what we're talking about :)); we also have a good amount of news about the latest developments in our portfolio companies and an interview with one of the new members of our team will certainly not be missing.
Read on to learn more about what we and our portfolio companies have been up to and have a glimpse of our exciting projects in the pipeline.
New Investments
We are happy to announce our new investment in i-TES, a Turin-based deeptech company which supports renewable energy sources with energy storage.
The investment was led by Eureka! Fund I - Technology Transfer together with CDP Venture Capital SGR through Tech4Planet, the National Hub for Technology Transfer dedicated to sustainability.
The technologies of i-TES srl represent a very interesting solution to address the emergency of energy storage and to respond more generally to the challenges of the energy transition.
The Eureka! Fund's investment in i-TES srl is particularly in line with both our goals in terms of sustainable finance and the current context of the energy crisis, rising energy prices and diversification of the energy source mix.
(Stefano Peroncini’s quote)
Perhaps some of our readers are not aware of that but Eureka! Fund has invested in new PoCs (Proof of Concept): Alice, Beyond Criopura, E-CO2Synt and IliCO2sep. Those projects come from Italian Universities and Research Centers and aim to reduce environmental impact.
The main goal of Eureka!’s Team is strictly connected to create something better not only for us but also for the next generation and the entire ecosystem. That’s why we invested in solutions for the CO2 capture and water treatment.
Portfolio Companies
Let’s move on to another interesting topic.
This year, the city of Milan hosted the long-awaited event: Salone del Mobile, welcomed more than 2,000 exhibiting brands including two of our portfolio companies: Phononic Vibes and Caracol AM.
Let's start immediately with the result of the collaboration between Phononic Vibes and GN architetti: SoundSpline.
SoundSpline is the first example of an acoustic island made with metamaterials, a true manifesto of the fusion of advanced industrial technologies with the world of interior design, which also keeps an eye on sustainability.
SoundSpline is conceived as an "acoustic cradle" where you can make a business call without distractions, study, plan a meeting, or simply work in a quiet environment that generates comfort at the same time.
The idea is brilliant because it avoids the choking feeling that you get when you stay in recording or "protected" rooms, as it remains open while still guaranteeing a very high noise reduction.
This solution can be used in all those situations, where a good level of privacy and noise reduction from outside are needed.
Close your eyes and listen; isn’t it great?!
At the same time Caracol, which offers Robotic Large Format Additive Manufacturing solutions for advanced industries, worked side by side with different companies in developing unique works of art; e.g. Elli designs and Made a Mano, an Italian company specialized in working and processing clay and volcanic stone based in Caltagirone, Sicily.
Also, if you enjoyed an Aperol spritz in Galleria Campari in Milan, you couldn't help wondering what those little white statues at Camparino were all about. Actually we are talking about a design collection depicting the famous advertising puppets made in 1926-1928 by Beyond Depero - The 3D Art Collection, reproduced indeed with Caracol's 3D printing technology.
Finally you could have still got lost in the organic forms of Hsiang Han Design's pieces at the RoDistric in Palazzo Bandello (Milan).
Thank you Caracol for the amazing job you are keeping doing! It does not only aims to do somenting good for the entire industrial ecosystem but it is also beautiful to look at.
Furthermore, we would like to point out that EYE4NIR, thanks to the participation in the Image Sensor Europe conference, has been inserted in the SWIR (Short-wave infrared) ecosystem map. Below is the complete map.
Congratulations to the team who keep working on making a disruptive technology for the imaging industry!
Last but noy least we are pleased to share great news: Mr. Rodrigo Bianchi has been recently appointed as the new Chairman of the Board of Directors of WISE S.r.l., our medtech company specialized in innovative electrodes.
Rodrigo, as a Senior Global Executive with more than 30 years’ experience of the Medical Devices industry including 26 years with Johnson & Johnson, will support WISE in scaling the sales of the company’s electrodes (as for instance the FDA cleared and CE marked WISE Cortical Strip for brain) and in boosting the pathway to market of the Heron lead - the FIRST Directional Percutaneous multicolumn SCS lead made to treat the cronic pain.
Welcome aboard Rodrigo!
Let’s move on as we cannot wait to let you know that Anonymised, part of BlackSheep MadTech Fund flock, recently won the I-COM Global Award 2023 as the best data startup of the year.
I-COM is a global association helping big enterprises to accelerate its transformation via Smart Data Marketing. Smart Data Marketing is the art of leveraging value from Data to create competitive advantage in products, customer experience and advertising. I-COM was founded in 2004, a spin-off of a Procter & Gamble led industry initiative, and today supported by members such as Unilever, AB InBev, AXA, Mastercard, Diageo, WPP and many more.
Congratulations Mattia Fosci and his team!
A special thanks to all the people who trusted, or simply gave attention to Anonymised as a disruptive tech player in the field of ID Resolution and cookieless audience targeting platform for publishers and advertisers.
This is a big achievement for all the people who are trying to transform advertising in a privacy-conscious world.
Anonymised is a data anonymization layer between consumers who want privacy, and advertisers who want to reach them. To understand the difference click here.
We would also like to mention a second start-up that is also part of the BlackSheep portfolio: iGenius.
iGenius, on behalf of Uljan Sharka, had the privilege of attending, as a speaker, the TECH.EMOTION at the end of May.
We are aware that the most urgent challenges of our humanity see a world completely interconnected and pervaded by technology; Tech.Emotion's project is precisely aimed at creating an environment where multiple intelligences can contaminate and collaborate to open up new spaces of opportunity.
The Crystal platform, realized by iGenius, is characterized by a fresh and intelligent approach that puts people first and is very easy to use; it is able to respond as a consultant would (e.g. offers detailed charts, proposes insights), emulating the thinking of an expert without the user having to be one; it learns from experience and offers increasingly personalized answers, 'sensing' the user's level of knowledge.
To learn more about the potential of the platform, have a look at the website.
Meet-up with Eureka!
Speaking of events which our colleagues took part in, let's start with Anna Amati.
Anna attended the Scouting Day, an event dedicated to individual innovators and innovative teams who awarded 20 free places for the Startup University 2023.
In Startup University she brought her great experience and the necessary 'investor' pragmatism, which helped the teams to challenge themselves and improve.
Several innovative teams launched themselves to find out if their idea could have had an impact on the world and people's lives by meeting the best mentors at Startup University!
Let’s keep on with Giovanni Strocchi who attended the WMF Festival2023, the Planet's largest innovation event on 13, 14 and 14 June. Giovanni took part in many startup meetings and confirmed it was a very stimulating experience on the evolution of the innovation ecosystem.
In addition to that, thanks to Bain & Company team, our CEO Stefano Peroncini had the chance to attend the Report 2022 presentation about the Venture Capital Scanner, commenting on the data of the Italian market, which is crosscurrent to the international scenario as it is growing.
That was a stimulating discussion among investors and startups, on emerging trends and operators' expectations. Click here to read the report.
Stefano also took part in the panel discussion at the conference organised by AIFI - Associazione Italiana Private Equity, Venture Capital e Private Debt, where attendees discussed the impact of private capital's contribution to innovation and the development of new technologies. The event “Private Capital: tra risparmio e occupazione” took place in the splendid setting of Regina Isabella Hotel in Ischia on 16, 17 and 18 June.
Above all, June 7th marked the end of the JEC Forum, a two-day meeting attended by our colleague Alessia Gennaro, that brought together major Italian industrial players, consortia, SMEs, start-ups and investors in Bologna with the common goal of fulfilling technological, process and regulatory gaps in the circular economy.
New frontiers for composite materials by recovering secondary raw materials from 'end-of-life' products towards higher sustainability.
Let's move on by talking about future events which will be attended by our colleagues, including Massimo Gentili, who will take part in Converging Skills: the free conference dedicated to those who are open to sharing knowledge, co-creating value and promoting startups, which will be held in Pisa from 26-29 June.
Massimo will bring his experience in technology transfer and talk about the upcoming investments on spinoffs in the Pisa area.
Register for free at Converging Skills at the following link.
Catch-up with the Team
As in any newsletter, we are going to meet a new member of our team and today it's Matteo Mura’s turn, EUREKA's CFO!
Matteo is originally from Dolianova, a small town in the province of Cagliari well-known for the production of excellent wine and olive oil, where he spent his childhood immersed in nature.
Matteo attended classical high school, driven by a desire to learn more about the melting pot that Greece and Rome had represented more than 2,000 years ago.
After high school, despite his close ties with his homeland, he decided to move to Milan to attend Bocconi University, driven by the desire of independence.
Specializing in Finance and Controlling, Matteo took the opportunity to attend the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands for a semester, during which he had the chance to deal with a multicultural environment where the continental and north European cultures met with the Mediterranean one, together with cultures from the rest of the world. Thanks to this experience, Matteo had the opportunity to face a new university approach, more practical and pragmatic.
After his experience in the Netherlands, he came back to Italy and started his professional career, while still writing his thesis, as a financial auditor at PwC. Here he spent about 7 years, having the chance to interface with a wide variety of banking and AWM clients.
What drove Matteo to embrace the world of Venture Capital and embark on a new professional project was, first and foremost, the desire to actively contribute to the value creation chain within the Italian entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Before joining Eureka’s Team, Matteo had a brief experience in another venture capital fund; to Matteo’s eyes, Eureka! represents the perfect combination of typical financial support for start-ups and the desire to support the sustainability goals that will create the entrepreneurs of the future, who look not only at their own economic well-being but also at the society which we live in.
Matteo loves sport in general: after tempering soul and body by practicing karate at a competitive level for over 12 years, he then decided to move on to something softer, dedicating himself to golf.
The values of sport, self-discipline, self-control and respect for the opponent have enabled him to face the world of work with ambition; from Matteo's point of view, it is important to be able to learn positive lessons from every situation, especially from defeats and difficulties. And this is precisely Matteo's motto: the important thing is not to always see the glass half full, but to try to fill it the next time.
Matteo is a person full of surprises and thanks to his experiences, it would be possible to write a book despite his young age. Actually he dreams of writing a book, but his attitude to perfectionism and self-criticism have not yet allowed him to do it.
Matteo, thank you for sharing deep and thought-provoking thoughts with us! We will keep some of your stories for the next interview! Stay tuned!!!
Things worth to share
It is with great pleasure to invite you to the presentation event of the Quaderno n. 54 'Technology Transfer: from research to market', coordinated by our CEO Stefano Peroncini.
The event will be held on 27 June at 5pm at the Village Pavilion of MIND Milano Innovation District.
Quaderno n. 54 on Technology Transfer, which is part of a scientific series of publications on AIFI venture capital investment, traces the evolution process of technology transfer in Italy, providing a regulatory framework and a mapping of the main players (including Eureka!) and their operations, also comparing the Italian model with international best practices.
If you are curious to know more about the topic, join us by registering at eventi@aifi.it
Let’s finish off the chat re-launching the interview given by Barbara Vita, Head of Innovation beyond The Core at Nestlé, who describes the synergy created among the Group and startups to accelerate the development of new solutions and technologies in the bioeconomy, even mentioning the Group's innovation strategies, which inlcude the investment in Eureka! Fund.
To know more, do not miss the interview at the following link.
That’s all for today!
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