The Board of Directors of Eureka! Venture SGR approved the half-yearly reports as at 30 June 2024 of the funds managed by the SGR, which show, overall, significant growth, both in terms of investments made and net asset value (NAV).
“The excellent results recorded to date are the result of a winning combination of clear investment strategies and, above all, of teams highly specialised in their respective fields, thanks to which we are rapidly deploying the capital under management,” Stefano Peroncini, managing director of the investment company he leads together with Anna Tampieri, who is its president, tells Startupbusiness. In a VC market that is finally becoming more competitive and efficient also in Italy, with a greater number of active operators, Eureka! Venture is ready to confirm its model as a platform for alternative assets, with new investment products that will take shape in the coming months’.
The first half of 2024 closed with 100 investors and EUR 110 million in total funding for the SGR, 62% of which came from institutional players such as European Investment Fund and CDP Venture Capital SGR, and 23% from industrial corporations, including A2A, Nestlé, SAES, Umbra Group, Calzedonia and Jakala. In aggregate, the funds managed by the SGR, Eureka! Fund and BlackSheep Fund, show increasing NAVs, which stand at around EUR 55 million.
In terms of investments, 25 have been made to date by Eureka! Fund I – Technology Transfer. During the first half of 2024, the management team consolidated the fund’s portfolio, supporting start-ups through further investments, including the scaleup Caracol, active in the additive manufacturing sector with specialised robotic technologies on a large scale, and the medtech Wise, which, thanks to the potential of its innovative medical electrodes, recently closed a major EUR 25 million D round, thanks also to the participation of the European Investment Bank with the financial instrument of venture debt. The portfolio also includes the start-ups Rehouseit, a benefit start-up active on innovative eco-sustainable construction materials, and Active Label, a spin-off from the University of Cagliari that was created following a proof-of-concept investment on a new type of smart labels for the packaging sector.
‘In the first half of 2024, we consolidated the portfolio of Eureka! Fund through targeted investments supporting some of the most promising realities; We have also laid the foundations to further support the growth of other portfolio companies, with which we are building new investment rounds,’ Anna Amati, director in charge of institutional relations at the SGR, commented in a note.
BlackSheep MadTech Fund, the second fund managed by the SGR, has nine portfolio companies in addition to the two already sold, for a total of 11 investments. Here, too, the constructed portfolio was consolidated. Also worth mentioning are the new rounds of iGenius, which operates on the frontier of emerging AI technologies and is developing the first fully Italian LLM (large language model), and Nexoya, which further consolidates the commercial expansion and development of the platform for budget optimisation on all digital advertising channels.
“During the first half of the year, the BlackSheep fund exceeded 65% overall call, with 12 initial investments and 6 follow-ons. Thanks to the distribution to investors of the proceeds from the two exits generated in 2023, the fund’s IPR is now above 0.2, an excellent result considering the vintage and European fund benchmarks,” comments Sandro Moretti Cane, managing director for the BlackSheep fund. In addition, in early 2024, two companies in the portfolio completed substantial capital increases that positively impacted the valuation of the holdings, bringing the TVPI to above 1, putting the BlackSheep funds in the top quartile of the benchmark for vintage 2021 funds as measured by PitchBook.”
Regarding the valuation of investments, although the investment period is still ongoing for all funds, there are further signs of interest from third-party investors that have already resulted in significant increases in the fair market value of portfolio companies. Today, the combined activities of Eureka! Fund and BlackSheep Fund involve 34 among, start-ups, innovative companies and POC (proof of concept) projects, a total turnover for the semester of more than EUR 21 million, a total of 766 employees and more than 70 patents, filed patent applications and licences.
The Eureka! team as at 30 June 2024 consisted of 13 people, including investment professionals from the Eureka! Fund and BlackSheep Fund and back-office staff and staff.
“The SGR continues rapidly in the deployment of managed funds, Eureka! Fund, in its fourth year of the investment period, and BlackSheep Fund, in its third year, with around 50% of the capital under management already invested and key indicators such as TVPI (total value paid in) and DPI (distribution paid in) confirming the validity of the investment strategies implemented to date. Thanks to the excellent work of our investment teams, we are now able to consolidate our role on the market as an Italian alternative investment platform, which will lead us to promote and launch new investment funds in the coming months,’ Peroncini concludes. (Photo by Maximalfocus on Unsplash)
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