Weekly update #37

Welcome to this edition of the weekly newsletter. The idea behind this activity is to gather all the information in the startup ecosystem in one place, with a special focus on the fintech market.

First of all, a quick celebration. This week we reached 5,000 subscribers for the newsletter! It’s an amazing result, and I hope it will reach as many people as possible in order to help this ecosystem to grow even further in the future.

Before jumping to the main topics for this week, I am exploring partnerships with the newsletter. So this edition is sponsored by Notion, which is offering a 6-months free plan of its plus product to all founders submitting an application for their startups program.

In order to redeem the free trial, submit an application using this linkhttps://ntn.so/michelemattei, select Michele Mattei as partner and include the following partner key: STARTUP4110P62416. I really hope it will be helpful for many founders out there!

Coming back to us, I’ve been reading mainly two very interesting reports this week, and I wanted to share the main takeaways from both with you. The first one is “Osservatorio sul Venture Capital - Italia Q2”, written by Growth Capital and Italian Tech Alliance . The study is a complete analysis of the investment landscape in Venture Capital, with a focus on Italy, but also a very deep understanding of the European market.

First take away: it wasn’t a good quarter for the startup ecosystem in Italy. Both number of deals and amount invested went down, with a shift only in terms of sectors and verticals.

Expanding the view to the entire 2024 first half, the situation in Italy doesn’t get any better. €671 million raised in 177 rounds, approximately half of the amount invested in the same time period in 2023, confirming a downtrend that seems to have no end. 37% of this amount is related to 2 megarounds.

Europe overall seems to show some signals of recovery. €28 billion in total the amount invested across 5.640 rounds, +18% in number of rounds and +3% in total invested amount compared to 2023. If this trend continues, there is a good chance to top or even surpass 2023.

The second report I read was “H12024 review - Europe sheds some downturn ghosts”, from Sifted . A complete overview of the European startup ecosystem in the first half of 2024, including investments made, verticals and trends. Here are some takeaways.

Early-stage funding saw a consistent increase month by month, climbing 38% from €1.3 billion in January to €1.8 billion in June. The main driver behind this growth was the €25 million+ deals, with 53 tracked in the first half of the year. Although early-stage deals made up 82.8% of the total number of deals in H1, they only accounted for 19.7% (€9.3 billion) of the total funding. Additionally, 43 companies secured debt facilities or convertibles during this period, indicating a growing interest in experimenting with non-dilutive capital throughout the startup lifecycle.

The UK made a strong comeback in Q2 following Sweden's record-breaking start to the year, achieving a historic monthly high of €5.9 billion in equity and debt investment in British tech. Notably, the first eastern European country to appear in the rankings is Estonia, in 14th place, highlighting the slow year for this region.

Northvolt and H2 Green Steel’s funding rounds solidified the infrastructure category as Europe's best-funded climate segment, emphasizing the critical role of debt in the sector. Although subsequent months haven't matched January's figures, there have still been significant rounds: €1.1 billion in debt for German solar startup Enpal and $523 million for UK-based battery company Zenobe Energy. A very good second place for fintech in this case, trying to recover from the last horrible years.

Overall, it was very interesting to understand different points of view on the same ecosystem, with a general feeling of optimism for the upcoming future. You can find the complete Sifted report here, and the one from Italian Tech Alliance here.

Before jumping to the latest news, a quick request from my side. I will start a small series of podcasts to interview fintech founders and VC managers active in the ecosystem. If you want to be part of it, feel free to drop me a line on Linkedin!

Anyway we saw some very interesting news in the market this week, Revolut founder is set to cash in part of his shares, while EU will close an antitrust investigation on Apple. Infinite Reality acquired Landvault for $450 million, Bain Capital together with Reference Capital acquired Envestnet, Inc for $4.5 billion, and SoftBank Group Corp. bought Graphcore . A lot of new funds this week! Index Ventures raised $2.3 billion for both venture and growth fund, Kembara raised $350 million from EIF, Nextalia SGR S.p.A. closed $150 million, LUMO Labs raised $100 million, but also Freeflow Ventures , OurCrowd and Frumtak Ventures . A lot of activities also on the italian market, where Cosmico acquired Flatmates , and new funding rounds from Newarc , LimoLane and Wopta Assicurazioni . Finally, some very interesting funding rounds from fintech startups like Dice , Care.fi , CreditLogic, Accend (YC S23) , Lemon.market, TRUSTAP , and many others.

But let's take a closer look at the main news of the last seven days:

Closed deals

• Indian fintech startup Dice raises $5 million from Dallas Venture Capital
• Mitgo invests $20 million in its newly launched fintech business, Capy
• Indian fintech Care.fi raises $2.6 million to disrupt financial services in the healthcare market
• CreditLogic secures €3.5 million to boost EU and UK expansion
• findependent closes a CHF5 million funding round through a crowd investment campaign
• Accend (YC S23) raises $3.2 million to reinvent fintech operations and compliance workflows
• TX Ventures leads the $5.5 million series A in TRUSTAP
• UK based NALA raises a $40 million series A funding round
• BucksApp secures $1 million in Pre-Seed funding between Paraguay and Bolivia
• Gradient Ventures led a $3.3 million funding round in fintech startup Niva
• Adfin secures $4.9 million to fix bill payments for sole traders and SMEs
• Goldman Sachs leds the $36 million series C round in Canoe Intelligence
• lemon.markets raises a $12 million funding round led by CommerzVentures
• TBC UZ raises $38.2 million from existing shareholders to leverage momentum
• German defense AI startup Helsing raises $450 million series C

Insights on the VC industry

• NYC based VC ZOI CAPITAL raises $200M for their Health AI Fund I
• FreeFlow Ventures, a Pasadena based VC, raised $90 million to invest in early stage deep tech startups
• South Korean Government, NH Bank, and OurCrowd launch $80M Israel-Korea fund for DeepTech investments
• European Investment Fund (EIF) invests €350 million in Spain-based Kembara, a Deep Tech and climate growth fund
• Dutch VC LUMO Labs launches a $100 million fund to invest in European startup
• Index Ventures announces $2.3 billion in new venture and growth funds
• Seae Ventures acquires Unseen Capital after the tragic death of its founder
• Solo GP Felix Plapperer raises $17 million for its new VC fund BOOOM💥
• Icelandic VC Frumtak Ventures raises $87 million fourth fund
• Polish VC Radix Ventures raised $25 million out of their $60 million target
• French VC Wind closed $90 million out of its targeted $130 million fund
• Nextalia SGR S.p.A. announces the successful close of its Nextalia Ventures fund, reaching its hard cap of €150 million

News on the market

• Alipay launches Tap!: a tap-to-pay in physical stores in China
• Nik Storonsky, founder and CEO of Revolut, is set to cash in part of his multibillion-dollar stake as part of a $500 million share sale
• Banque de France will team up with Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) for a CBCD project on cross borders payments
• Fintel acquires threesixty services for £14.6 million
• Deutsche Bank launches a $500 million social bond to boost sustainable finance
• HSBC partners with Visa, Currencycloud and Tink to develop Zing international money app
• Infinite Reality announced the acquisition of Landvault for $450 million
• European Union has concluded its antitrust investigation on Apple now that Apple Pay is also available to third party providers
• SoftBank Group Corp. officially acquires UK-based AI chipmaker Graphcore
• Bain Capital and Reverence Capital Partners acquire Envestnet, Inc for $4.5 billion

A special look in the Italian market

• Italian insurtech Wopta Assicurazioni secures €4.1 million in Series A funding
• Milan based LimoLane raises $35 million from Cherry Bay Capital Group
• I attended Italian Tech Alliance event at Isola for 32 in Milan to talk about VC investments in Italy in Q2
• Italian startup Cosmico acquires communication agency Flatmates
• Italian fintech Satispay is looking to expand into investment products with Satispay invest
• Italian prop tech Newarc raises $800k seed round led by Zest Group

And here some useful resources for everyone involved in the ecosystem:

Events you don’t want to miss

• B4i Demo Day Batch IX | Milan - 16.07.2024 (Link to the invite or website)
• BolzanoSlushD | Bolzano - 03.09.2024 (Link to the invite or website) I still have some discount codes for this one, reach out to me if you want one!
• Italian Tech Week | Turin - 25-27.09.2024 (Link to the invite or website)
• Bits & Pretzels founders festival | Munich 29.09-01.10.2024 (Link to the invite or website)
• Milan Fintech Summit | Milan - 08-09.10.2024 (Link to the invite or website)

You have a cool event you want to mention or to sponsor? Feel free to send me a DM.

Startups raising funds

• Fantalegends - a Fantasy Football free-to-play mobile game that aims to provide an enjoyable and safe experience, user-centered, with more than 2k daily active users. Raising $1M.

• PopulaRise - The platform that allows companies of every dimension to promote themselves on social media through the collaboration with their clients. B2B2C SaaS. Raising $1M.
• Bitcoin People - Fintech company focused on crypto payments between corporate and cross countries. B2B, SaaS. Raising $500k. Round closed!
• Tutornow - Edtech that provides an online tutoring platform for students with learning disorders. Raising $500k to $1M.
• Recivu - Fintech  startup trying to digitize the receipt flow by getting rid of papers. Looking for $150k in SAFE, already $50k committed.
• Weagle - B2B Tech startup that provides the very first browser designed for company, with total security for sensitive data. Raising $6 millions for their seed round.

• Reach Finance - Reach is the fintech platform for wealth accumulation for the Y&Z generations, they provide users with the tools to build wealth such as a budget tracker, a financial plan and a systematization of investments. Looking for $700k, with already $500k committed.
• wrapp.ai - A fintech startups that offers a virtual accountant and CFO that can help SMEs scale globally. Looking for $1 million, $750k already granted from public funds, looking to close the last $350k.
• Shoppy Code:Gift card platform that offers a points based loyalty program. They share part of the profits coming from marketing budgets with their customers. Raising $500k.

You want to be present in this list? Feel free to shoot me a DM on Linkedin.

Take also a look at the last edition of the newsletter, Weekly update #36