Vento rolls out new €75M fund for Italian founders, no matter where they live

In the past 15 years, when the European risk capital turned into higher equipment, there was a way to help a nation’s ecosystem invest in founders from this country, regardless of where they were based. This would help to re -patronage the entrepreneurial way of thinking at home. In Europe, the approach was led partly by Paris’ headquarters in Paris Kima Ventures. Now a new venture company hopes to replicate this idea from Italy.

VentoOne of the most active private VCS in Italy’s early stage starts its second fund with 75 million euros, especially for Italian startup founders at home and abroad.

The sector-tagnostic fund comes from the organizers of Italian tech weekEvery year in Turin, where Sam Altman, Reid Hoffman and Elon Musk were hosted.

The event was originally launched by Fiat Family Scion John Elkann, chairman of Vento, but also chairman of Stellantis (the parent company of Fiat) and Exor (the holding company of the Agnelli family, the Fiat and other asset).

Understandably for someone of his status, Elkann has an extensive network of both Europe and Silicon Valley, which he helps with ITW. So it may not be a coincidence that Vento’s Investment Committee includes veterans like Diego Piacentini, Mike Volpi (formerly index company) and Jean de la Rochebrochard. Ironically, Rochebrochard recently joined the same Kima venture, which Vento hopes for emulating after being controversial REMOVED By Newwave, a French venture outfit, last year.

So far, Vento has already invested in 100 startups, including Bee, Jethr and Qomodo. Fund II plans to invest in 375 investments for over five years, the company said.

Diyala d’Aveni, CEO of Vento, told Techcrunch about a call: “Italy is pretty behind compared to other European countries, but we believe that the trajectory is the same as the others. That’s why we do this. For us, the Italian week of Tech is a way to bring people from outside of Italy on the one hand, to make incredible investors to meet Italian founders and to see the potential of the Italian ecosystem and to inspire the talent in Italy to build their own companies. We think that the fact that there are not many success stories in Italy prevents the ecosystem to grow. “

D’Aveni added: “There is no lack of capital. It is a lack of companies, but we only need a few success stories, and then the whole flywheel will start and we will see what we have seen in France. “

The Italian tech week feeds this strategy useful and enables Vento to evaluate over 3,500 startups that refer to the event, which means that a selective conversion rate with a standardized ticket size of € 150,000 is maintained and some follow-up systems are made.

But what was the problem with former Italian tech founders that Elkann believed that this fund would solve?

“When we started Vento’s first fund in 2022, we realized that the technological and entrepreneurial potential of Italy was considerably under -supplied,” he told Techcrunch.

“Italian founders have always shown extraordinary … entrepreneurial spirit, but the ecosystem was not there. Vento was created to master this gap by not only capital but a comprehensive platform that combines direct investments, risk vans and network development by the Italian tech week. “

However, Italian corporate law is often considered less cheap for startup founders compared to British or US company vehicles. Does he expect the start-ups to be domed in Italy, or will it be agnostic?

“Our primary commitment is to identify extraordinary Italian founders and to support them on their global entrepreneurial journey,” he said. “Italy is making considerable progress to become increasingly competitive in the international technology landscape, and we are confident that these regulatory differences between the countries will soon become less and less relevant.”

To be fair, the Tech scene improves in Italy. Accordingly Data room dataInvestments of the risk capital in Italian start -ups have been 5.72 billion US dollars in the past five years (2020 to 2024), which has reached an increase of more than three times over the past five years when it has only reached $ 1.7 billion.

D’Aveni added that there were already plans to reach internationally: “We already have a network of founders outside of Italy who send us shops and microcomunities from Italians in New York, London, Berlin and Paris.”