The Week in Italian Startup

Giacomo Mollo
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The Week in Italian Startup discusses and analyzes the latest news from the Italian startup ecosystem. Giacomo Mollo is a former academic in philosophy turned tech investor. He is co-founder and partner of iN3 Ventures, a corporate innovation and VC firm. Niccolò Sanarico is an Oxford MBA and a software engineer with a passion for innovation and startups. He is currently an Investment Manager at Primo Ventures SGR, a venture capital firm based in Italy.

  1. 3d ago

    Why startups will fail MORE according to Anthropic #206

    Anthropic's Founder's Playbook argues startups will fail MORE as AI shrinks idea-to-product from months to a weekend, removing the forced question every founder used to answer: does anyone want this? The 42% of startups that die building what nobody wants is set to climb, so the real test moves from "can you build it?" to "should you build it?" We get into AI-driven confirmation bias — how it constructs a fundable-looking case for a bad idea — and why a prototype is now just a prop for real user conversations. Diligence shifts from artifact quality to evidence of demand: retention, repeat usage, actual usage. We cover why the moat moves to workflow lock-in and proprietary data, why the next elite founder is an AI architect rather than the best coder, and whether the seed round is quietly losing its old rationale. Then two Italian deep-tech seed rounds: X-nano's €3.7M for synthetic graphite for lithium-ion batteries, and Rainbow Crops' €9.7M for AI-powered crop engineering. Closing on Niccolò's newsletter hitting its 300th issue.Niccolò's newsletter: http://dealflowit.niccolosanarico.com/Watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@giacomomolloListen to all episodes on audio:Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3fVynsQGoogle Podcast: https://bit.ly/3thf9RCApple Podcast: https://apple.co/3ElhykqAmazon Music: https://shorturl.at/9Dtd9Get in touch:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/giacxxxTwitter: https://twitter.com/giacomomolloEmail: giacomo@in3.ventures#venturecapital #italy #startup

    14 min

  2. Jun 17

    Bending Spoons filed for US IPO. The Details. #205

    Bending Spoons IPO, SEC F-1 filing, EV/EBITDA valuation, roll-up acquisition strategy, AI token economics, and Satispay's €60M round anchor this episode on the Italian startup and venture capital ecosystem. The hosts dissect Bending Spoons' valuation ladder — roughly $2.8B in 2024, $11.7B in late 2025, and a ~$20B IPO target on Nasdaq (ticker BSB) — implying the company roughly doubles every eight months. They debate whether Bending Spoons is a SaaS business, a software compounder, or a private equity-style roll-up, noting that over 80% of growth is inorganic and only ~13% organic, with the S-1 explicitly citing Teledyne's Henry Singleton as a model. Running back-of-envelope VC math, they argue traditional EV/EBITDA logic (15–25x for software) lands well below $10B, exposing a large premium the market is pricing into the deal. The conversation surfaces sharp operating signals: revenue-per-employee near $2.5M (projected above $3M), net revenue retention of roughly 70–90% driven heavily by price increases on acquired consumer brands, and a sub-70% gross margin. A standout insight is the treatment of AI and token spend as COGS rather than R&D — using models from Anthropic, OpenAI, and Gemini plus local deployments, with ~70% of code shipped via AI — which the hosts argue most companies misclassify. They also break down the firm's acquisition discipline, including target IRR hurdles of 65% levered and 25% unlevered against a claimed pipeline of 1,000 targets. The episode closes on post-IPO liquidity for Italy's ecosystem and Satispay's internal €60M raise at a ~€1B valuation, framed as a fintech land grab for Italy's €1.27 trillion in household savings. Niccolò's newsletter: ⁠⁠http://dealflowit.niccolosanarico.com/⁠⁠ Watch on Youtube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@giacomomollo⁠ Listen to all episodes on audio: Spotify: ⁠⁠https://spoti.fi/3fVynsQ⁠⁠ Google Podcast: ⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3thf9RC⁠⁠ Apple Podcast: ⁠⁠https://apple.co/3Elhykq⁠⁠ Amazon Music: ⁠⁠https://shorturl.at/9Dtd9⁠⁠ Get in touch: Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/giacxxx⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠https://twitter.com/giacomomollo⁠⁠ Email: giacomo@in3.ventures #venturecapital #italy #startup

    24 min

  3. May 27

    The Pope Just Legitimized Anthropic. Here's Why That's Significant. #204

    This episode unpacks Anthropic's Milan office launch staged at the Vatican with Pope Leo, Lex's $50M Series B legal tech raise led by Left Lane Capital, and Quantum Bridge Technologies' €8M seed round backed by Primo, Wire, Cadenza and Club University. The hosts argue Anthropic deliberately routed legitimacy through the Vatican after the Trump administration designated the company a supply chain risk in February — using the Pope's first-ever AI encyclical to position itself as the ethics-forward, European-friendly alternative to OpenAI. They flag that Anthropic reached the Pope before OpenAI did, reframing the "heroic ethicist" posture as a pricing input on company valuation and a strategic moat in regulation-heavy Europe. On Lex, the speed is the story: only eight months separate Series A from Series B, bringing total funding to roughly $73M and suggesting existing investors doubled down before larger US funds could enter. Left Lane Capital — a $3.8B AUM fund founded in 2019, with HelloFresh, Udemy, BlaBlaCar and MasterClass on its track record — is an unusual lead given its consumer-loyalty thesis, but consistent with its bias toward regulation-heavy markets. The Quantum Bridge Technologies round is anchored by Hoi-Kwong Lo, one of the most cited researchers in quantum cryptography, giving the team unusual scientific depth for a seed-stage Italian deep tech deal. The episode closes with a macro signal: May 2026 ranked as the second-best fundraising month in Italy over the past six years, behind only the 2022 peak. Niccolò's newsletter: ⁠⁠http://dealflowit.niccolosanarico.com/⁠⁠ Watch on Youtube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@giacomomollo⁠ Listen to all episodes on audio: Spotify: ⁠⁠https://spoti.fi/3fVynsQ⁠⁠ Google Podcast: ⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3thf9RC⁠⁠ Apple Podcast: ⁠⁠https://apple.co/3Elhykq⁠⁠ Amazon Music: ⁠⁠https://shorturl.at/9Dtd9⁠⁠ Get in touch: Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/giacxxx⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠https://twitter.com/giacomomollo⁠⁠ Email: giacomo@in3.ventures #venturecapital #italy #startup

    15 min

  4. May 25

    Did Algorithmiq Just Solve Italy's Talent Problem? #203

    Italian quantum software startup Algorithmiq, founded by physicist Sabrina Maniscalco, just closed an €18M round and relocated its global HQ from Helsinki to Milan — the largest quantum bet in Italian history and the first full-startup reshoring case, co-led by CDP. The hosts reframe the brain drain reversal as a "magnet effect," comparing the deal's pull on PhDs and operators to SpaceX in LA, DeepMind in London, and Spotify/Klarna in Stockholm. They unpack Algorithmiq's contrarian thesis: while the US and China pour capital into quantum hardware, Algorithmiq attacks the software and error-correction layer — proving it by beating Stanford, Harvard, and Oxford teams in a $2M quantum chemistry challenge tied to cancer research. The conversation pivots to Weedoo's €21M round to scale an AI agent platform for Italian SMBs across marketing, sales, and operations, backed solely by Azimut's private equity vehicle ICF3 (Impresa Crescita 3). The episode closes on the EIC Scaling Club — Brussels' explicit "unicorn conversion funnel" of ~120 companies that have collectively raised €3.4B — which just admitted three Italian names: Energy Dome, Cellply, and Caracol, mapping cleanly to energy, biotech, and advanced manufacturing. Energy Dome's parallel commercial agreement with Google links the story into the broader hyperscaler CapEx wave reshaping the European energy stack, with all three threads pointing in the same direction: Italian deep tech increasingly plugged into international capital and strategic supply chains. Niccolò's newsletter: ⁠⁠http://dealflowit.niccolosanarico.com/⁠⁠ Watch on Youtube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@giacomomollo⁠ Listen to all episodes on audio: Spotify: ⁠⁠https://spoti.fi/3fVynsQ⁠⁠ Google Podcast: ⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3thf9RC⁠⁠ Apple Podcast: ⁠⁠https://apple.co/3Elhykq⁠⁠ Amazon Music: ⁠⁠https://shorturl.at/9Dtd9⁠⁠ Get in touch: Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/giacxxx⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠https://twitter.com/giacomomollo⁠⁠ Email: giacomo@in3.ventures #venturecapital #italy #startup

    13 min

  5. May 20

    Smartness vs Booking.com: The Consolidation War Begins #202

    The episode unpacks three Italian venture capital deals shaping the ecosystem in 2025-2026: Smartpricing's €47M Series B (the largest vertical SaaS round in Italian history), a €5M Series A in insurtech, and the state of Italian life science fundraising versus France. Smartness's capital stack — primary equity plus secondary plus debt — is read as an engineered M&A war chest aimed at consolidating fragmented PMS and CRM players in hospitality tech before incumbents like Booking.com move on the direct-booking layer. The hosts argue that six years from launch to Series B places Smartness in top-quartile European growth, approaching North American velocity. A recurring thesis emerges: European vertical SaaS will increasingly bolt acquisition strategies onto organic growth, absorbing regional players who cap out at national scale. The presence of Bending Spoons founders in Smartness cap table is flagged as a signal worth tracking, alongside the company's 5,000 customers across 41 countries and 10% organic month-over-month growth. The insurtech deal stands out for an unusual cap table — founders still holding 40% at a roughly €100M valuation while running EBITDA-positive on €5M in revenue — and for replicating the same M&A playbook through broker roll-ups. The life science segment exposes a structural gap: France has nearly double the number of Italian life science companies but raises roughly 5x the capital, while Italian players skew toward digital health and apps versus France's medtech, devices, and hardware bets. The throughline is an Italian ecosystem accelerating in execution and capital structure sophistication but still meaningfully capital-starved against its direct European peers. Niccolò's newsletter: ⁠⁠http://dealflowit.niccolosanarico.com/⁠⁠ Watch on Youtube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@giacomomollo⁠ Listen to all episodes on audio: Spotify: ⁠⁠https://spoti.fi/3fVynsQ⁠⁠ Google Podcast: ⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3thf9RC⁠⁠ Apple Podcast: ⁠⁠https://apple.co/3Elhykq⁠⁠ Amazon Music: ⁠⁠https://shorturl.at/9Dtd9⁠⁠ Get in touch: Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/giacxxx⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠https://twitter.com/giacomomollo⁠⁠ Email: giacomo@in3.ventures #venturecapital #italy #startup

    10 min

  6. Apr 29

    3 Signals That Turn a "Growth Round" Into a Rescue — Casavo Hits All Three #201

    This episode dissects three Italian venture capital signals: a €12M turnaround round into proptech Casavo led by Picus Capital and Project A, with Bending Spoons founders entering via personal vehicles; Jet HR's launch of an enterprise division and its public commitment to break-even by 2028; and Radical Partners launching Italy's first privately-backed VC fund-of-funds with a €400M target. The hosts read the Casavo cap table as a coded message — operator-DNA investors like Picus and Project A signal a rebuild rather than a growth round, and the absence of Italian VCs raises uncomfortable questions about who in Italy is equipped to underwrite turnarounds. The Jet HR segment digs into why a startup would publicly commit to break-even years in advance, and whether that signals to enterprise buyers (who fear vendor cash burn) more than to investors. The conversation frames Jet HR as a clean execution of the "boring business + new tech" thesis, applied to Italy's notoriously bureaucratic payroll and consulenza del lavoro market. The Radical Partners fund-of-funds discussion treats the launch as a structural maturity signal for the Italian ecosystem — a layer that institutional capital like pension funds needs in order to allocate to Italian VC at scale. The hosts speculate on what fund size will define a viable next-generation Italian VC firm, weighing US-style micro-fund models against larger institutional plays. Niccolò's newsletter: ⁠⁠http://dealflowit.niccolosanarico.com/⁠⁠ Watch on Youtube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@giacomomollo⁠ Listen to all episodes on audio: Spotify: ⁠⁠https://spoti.fi/3fVynsQ⁠⁠ Google Podcast: ⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3thf9RC⁠⁠ Apple Podcast: ⁠⁠https://apple.co/3Elhykq⁠⁠ Amazon Music: ⁠⁠https://shorturl.at/9Dtd9⁠⁠ Get in touch: Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/giacxxx⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠https://twitter.com/giacomomollo⁠⁠ Email: giacomo@in3.ventures #venturecapital #italy #startup

    13 min

  7. Apr 27

    Why Pirelli, Ferrovie and CDP Just Bet €38M On Italian Robotaxis #200

    This episode breaks down three signals from the European startup and venture capital ecosystem: the €38M early-stage round into Italian autonomous driving startup Niulinx, the €211M EU-approved Italian state aid grant to deep-tech photonics company CamGraPhIC, and an Italian VC panel debating whether AI agent–powered startups change the venture playbook. The Niulinx discussion unpacks why a coalition of Pirelli, Ferrovie dello Stato, a2a, CDP, and Falck reads less like a VC round and more like an Italian mobility stack assembling itself around a software layer — and why the company's "robosharing" framing is regulatory arbitrage, not a product compromise. The €211M CamGraPhIC grant is examined as a potential turning point for EU industrial policy under Article 107(3)(c), with NATO Innovation Fund's earlier involvement hinting at a dual-use, strategic-autonomy subtext. The hosts contrast the European infrastructure-first AV approach against Waymo and Tesla's software-first playbook, and question whether €38M is enough courageous capital to de-risk Italian deep tech to a Series A. The final segment debates the rise of one-founder, agent-augmented startups, the concentration risk of solo founders, and how venture itself may evolve toward AI-negotiated deals, faster MVP cycles, and more liquid secondaries. The conversation is grounded in specific deals and named investors — Emilio Frazzoli, Gianluca Dettori, Massimiliano Magrini — rather than abstract trend commentary. Niccolò's newsletter: ⁠⁠http://dealflowit.niccolosanarico.com/⁠⁠ Watch on Youtube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@giacomomollo⁠ Listen to all episodes on audio: Spotify: ⁠⁠https://spoti.fi/3fVynsQ⁠⁠ Google Podcast: ⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3thf9RC⁠⁠ Apple Podcast: ⁠⁠https://apple.co/3Elhykq⁠⁠ Amazon Music: ⁠⁠https://shorturl.at/9Dtd9⁠⁠ Get in touch: Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/giacxxx⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠https://twitter.com/giacomomollo⁠⁠ Email: giacomo@in3.ventures #venturecapital #italy #startup

    21 min

  8. Apr 8

    Why Bending Spoons bought Tractive? #199

    Bending Spoons acquires Tractive, an Austrian GPS pet tracker with €100M+ ARR, breaking its software-only acquisition playbook for the first time with a hardware-subscription hybrid. The episode unpacks why a company that built an $11B valuation buying declining digital products like Evernote, Vimeo, and AOL paid a premium for a profitable, fast-growing hardware business. Tractive's co-founders came from Runtastic, the fitness app sold to Adidas for €220M, making this their second major exit using the same sensor-plus-subscription model in a different vertical. The hosts explore how Tractive's 900,000 paying subscribers generate a proprietary pet health and movement dataset that could unlock AI-driven veterinary intelligence and pet insurance products. In Italian startup news, Wearable Robotics — a Sant'Anna di Pisa spinoff building rehabilitation exoskeletons — closed a €5M Series A led by CDP Venture Capital, targeting a market where traditional therapy only recovers 10% of stroke patients. Capsule Corporation raised €800K to develop water-based propulsion systems for small satellites, positioning Italy as a hub for specialized space-tech engineering. The episode closes with a shoutout to Depthfirst, a cybersecurity startup with an Italian CTO from Google DeepMind, which raised $80M in a Series B less than 90 days after emerging from stealth. Niccolò's newsletter: ⁠⁠http://dealflowit.niccolosanarico.com/⁠⁠ Watch on Youtube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@giacomomollo⁠ Listen to all episodes on audio: Spotify: ⁠⁠https://spoti.fi/3fVynsQ⁠⁠ Google Podcast: ⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3thf9RC⁠⁠ Apple Podcast: ⁠⁠https://apple.co/3Elhykq⁠⁠ Amazon Music: ⁠⁠https://shorturl.at/9Dtd9⁠⁠ Get in touch: Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/giacxxx⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠https://twitter.com/giacomomollo⁠⁠ Email: giacomo@in3.ventures #venturecapital #italy #startup

    15 min
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About

The Week in Italian Startup discusses and analyzes the latest news from the Italian startup ecosystem. Giacomo Mollo is a former academic in philosophy turned tech investor. He is co-founder and partner of iN3 Ventures, a corporate innovation and VC firm. Niccolò Sanarico is an Oxford MBA and a software engineer with a passion for innovation and startups. He is currently an Investment Manager at Primo Ventures SGR, a venture capital firm based in Italy.

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