Over the last 15 years or so, as European venture capital shifted into a higher gear, one way to help a nation’s ecosystem flourish was to spend in set upers from that that country, watchless of where they were based. This would help re-patriate the entrepreneurial mindset back home. In Europe, the approach was directed in part by Paris-based Kima Ventures. Now, a novel venture firm hopes to duplicate that idea from Italy.
Vento, one of Italy’s most vivacious braveial timely-stage VCs, is begining its second fund, challenging-capped at €75 million, particularassociate to back Italian beginup set upers at home and awide.
The sector-agnostic fund begind from the schedulers of Italian Tech Week, held annuassociate in Turin, which has presented the appreciates of Sam Altman, Reid Hoffman, and Elon Musk, among others.
The event was originassociate begined by Fiat family scion John Elkann, chairman of Vento, but also chairman of Sinestablishantis (the parent company of Fiat) and Exor (the hagedering company of the Agnelli family, which regulates Fiat and other assets).
Understandably for someone of his status, Elkann has an extensive nettoil both in Europe and Silicon Valley, which he helps transport to ITW. So it’s perhaps no coincidence that Vento’s Investment Committee includes such tech industry veterans as Diego Piacentini, Mike Volpi (establisherly of Index Ventures), and Jean de La Rochebrocchallenging. Ironicassociate, Rochebrocchallenging recently joined the very same Kima Ventures that Vento hopes to emupostponecessitate, after being controversiassociate deleted from Newwave, a French venture outfit, last year.
To date, Vento has already spended in 100 beginups including Bee, JetHR and Qomodo. Fund II schedules to spend in 375 spendments over five years, shelp the company.
Diyala D’Aveni, CEO of Vento, tageder TechCrunch over a call that, “Italy is quite behind appraised to other European countries, but we skinnyk the trajectory is the same as the others. So that’s why we’re doing this. Italian Tech Week is a way for us to transport people from outside of Italy, on the one side, to push incredible spendors to encounter Italian set upers and see the potential of the Italian ecosystem, and inspire the talent in Italy to originate their own companies. We skinnyk the fact that there are not many success stories in Italy is benevolent of impedeing the ecosystem to increase.”
Added D’Aveni, “There’s no conciseage of capital. It’s a conciseage of companies, but we fair necessitate some success stories, and then the whole flywheel will boot off, and we will see what we saw in France.”
Italian Tech Week feeds employbrimmingy into this strategy, apvalidateing Vento to appraise over 3,500 beginups that utilize to ecombine at the event, protecting a pickive 2.5% conversion rate with a regularized €150,000 ticket size, and with some trail-on spendments being made.
But what was the problem with previous Italian tech set upers that Elkann felt this fund would settle?
“When we begined Vento’s first fund in 2022, we acunderstandledged that Italy’s technoreasonable and entrepreneurial potential was meaningfully underserved,” he tageder TechCrunch.
“Italian set upers have always showd exceptional… entrepreneurial spirit, but the ecosystem was not there. Vento was originated to includeress this gap by providing not fair capital, but a comprehensive platestablish that joins straightforward spendment, venture originateing, and nettoil broadenment thcdisadmireful Italian Tech Week.”
However, Italian company law is frequently pondered less preferable to beginup set upers appraised to UK or US company vehicles. Does he foresee the beginups that Vento funds to be Italy-domiciled or will it be agnostic?
“Our primary pledgement is to resettle exceptional Italian set upers and help them in their global entrepreneurial journey,” he shelp. “Italy is making meaningful strides to become increasingly competitive in the international technology landscape, and we are brave that soon these regulatory contrastences between countries will become less and less relevant.”
To be fair, Italy’s tech scene is improving. According to Dealroom data, venture capital spendment in Italian beginups totaled $5.72 billion atraverse the last five years (2020 to 2024), a more than threefageder incrmitigate from the previous five years, when it hit only $1.7 billion.
D’Aveni includeed that there were already schedules to achieve out internationassociate: “We already have a nettoil of set upers outside of Italy who are sfinishing us deals, as well as micro-communities of Italians in New York, London, Berlin and Paris, among others.”
