Innogest Capital, leading Italian fund in seed and early stage segment, aims to raise more than € 80 million

Innogest Capital, the largest fund in Italian seed & early stage, led by managing partners Claudio Giuliano and Marco Pinciroli, has raised ? 80 million in six years and has already invested in 20 companies.

Innogest Capital provides capital to young Italian companies with high-growth potential, mainly belonging to the following sectors: media & telecommunications, information and communications technology, renewable energy, biomedical, advanced mechanics.

"Although the majority of applications we receive are of great interest, we cannot finance them all," says Giuliano. "However, the number of possibilities  is an extraordinary strength that allows Innogest to set high performance goals for its investor base. "

In a time when government and Italian institutions are showing interest and are focusing on start-ups, which, as Minister for Economic Development Corrado Passera has repeatedly stressed, are crucial for the revival of Italy, however, there are many new companies seeking funding abroad rather than in Italy.

"Many of our investments are doing very well," says Giuliano satisfied, "a number of companies are developing much abroad, where they find new capitalization more easily. As seed investors, it is essential for us to have a supply chain that allows our companies to get to the top in America, a larger market where one can sell a lot more than in Italy. What we aim for, in fact, are excellent divestments. For example, right now, we are evaluating an IPO for one of our companies. We are here to invest in projects that can become big. In order to succeed, you often have to internationalize your business."

For the future, Innogest, the first in its field, aims to do more and better. "We're working on a new fund that will be even more substantial than 80 million euro. We will continue to focus on Italian companies with ambitions of global development. We also intend to use more and more the existing foreign network, to "encourage investments in Italian companies and to boost the commercial development of the companies, that is, selling the products of the businesses we finance through partnerships with local operators based abroad. This is possible because we have a larger network than the one that an entrepreneur usually has access to."

As for Italy, where the market is smaller and the delay in the legislation related to start ups risked to bring down an entire industry, Giuliano is optimistic "the ecosystem is developing but in our world, you do better business if there are many operators with much capital rather than few with little. Our world is based on minority investments that are easier to do with others. The best chance for start-ups is having many investors in one project. We hope that in Italy, banks, insurance companies and pension funds will increasingly invest in our industry.