Over the past 15 years or so, as European venture capital has moved to higher gear, one way to help the country's ecosystem flourish has been to invest in the country's founders, regardless of where they are. This helps bring the entrepreneur's mindset back to home. In Europe, this approach was partially pioneered by Paris-based Kima Ventures. Now, the new venture company wants to replicate the idea from Italy.
One of Italy's most active private early VCS, Vento is launching a second hard-cap fund for 75 million euros, particularly to support the founders of Italian startups both domestically and internationally.
The sector and protest funds came from the organizers of Italian Tech Week, which hosts Sam Altman, Reed Hoffman and Elon Musk, which hosts others.
The event was originally launched by Vento Chairman Fiat Family Scion John Elkann, as well as Stellantis (the parent company of Fiat) and Exor (the holding company of the Agnelli family that manages Fiat and other assets).
Naturally, for someone in his position, Elkan has an extensive network in both Europe and Silicon Valley. It is probably no coincidence, therefore, that Vento's investment committee includes veterans from the high-tech industry, such as Diego Piacentini, Mike Volpi (formerly Index Ventures), and Jean de La Rochebrochard. Ironically, Rochebrochard is exactly the same as the Kima venture that Vento recently wanted to emulate after being controversially excluded from the French venture outfit Newwave last year.
So far, Vento has already invested in 100 startups, including Bee, Jethr and Qomodo. Fund II is planning to invest in 375 investments over five years, the company said.
Diyala D'Aveni, CEO of Vento, said, “I think Italy is way behind other European countries, but the trajectory is the same as the others. That's why we're doing this. Tech Week in Italy is a way to bring non-Italian people to one side, and encourage incredible investors to meet Italian founders, see the possibilities of Italian ecosystems, and build their own companies. I think the fact that Italy doesn't have many success stories is like preventing ecosystems from growing.”
D'Aveni has been added. “There's no lack of capital. It's a lack of companies, but just a few success stories are needed, and the whole flywheel starts and you get what you saw in France.”
Italian Tech Week has been usefully feeding this strategy, with Vento assessing over 3,500 startups applied to appear at events, maintaining a selective 2.5% conversion rate with a standardized ticket size of 150,000 euros, and several subsequent investments being made.
But what was the issue of the previous Italian technology founders that Elkan felt the fund would be resolved?
“When we launched Vento's first fund in 2022, we realized that Italy's technical and entrepreneurial potential is significantly underserved,” he told TechCrunch.
“The Italian founders have always demonstrated exceptional … entrepreneurial spirit, but the ecosystem wasn't there. Vento was created to address this gap by providing a comprehensive platform that combines direct investment, venture building and network development, not just capital, through Italian Tech Week.”
However, Italian company laws often do not offer much advantage for startup founders compared to vehicles from UK or US companies. Does he expect Vento's funds to rule Italy, or will it become an agnostic?
“Our main commitment is to identify exceptional Italian founders and support them on their global entrepreneurial journey,” he said. “Italy is making great strides to become increasingly competitive in the international technology situation. We are confident that soon there will be less and less differences in these regulations between the countries.”
To be fair, the Italian tech scene has been improved. Venture capital investments in Italian startups totaled $5.72 billion over the past five years (2020-2024), reaching just $1.7 billion, up more than three times over the past five years.
D'Aveni added that he already has plans to reach out internationally. “We already have a network of non-Italian founders who send out Italian micro-communities such as New York, London, Berlin and Paris.”