FoolFarm, an Italian venture builder specialising in Artificial Intelligence, closed a new EUR 2.55 million investment round with a pre-money valuation of EUR 30 million. This contribution represents the first closing of a larger capital increase, launched in June 2024, for a total of EUR 9.2 million.
This capital increase will allow the group to develop its 2024/2028 business plan, which envisages 20 new investments within the plan horizon in start-ups based on artificial intelligence technologies with the aim of reaching break-even point by 2026 and listing on the stock exchange.
FoolFarm adopts a business model that envisages the mass production, from scratch to the market, of start-ups in the field of artificial intelligence, either through spin-offs of technologies born in its research and development laboratories in Milan and Lecce, or through the tech transfer of university projects thanks to the Foolers village programme, now present in the universities of Lecce, Sassari and La Sapienza in Rome.
The originality of FoolFarm lies in its operation as a true ‘startup factory’ through a proprietary industrial-style startup-creation process and a unique fast prototyping technology platform, FoolCore, which allows new prototypes and startups to be created in a matter of weeks. Furthermore, FoolFarm adopts a strategy that has intellectual property at its core, as each start-up is always based on international industrial patents. FoolFarm also operates in the corporate world through its open innovation offering FoolFarm Solutions.
Since its start-up, FoolFarm has created more than EUR 15 million in assets, launching five start-ups created from scratch in its own labs: Voiceme, IIO, Fragmentalis, AidaMask and Snaproof, all of which have industrial patents that ensure greater value and facilitate their evolution also with a view to potential acquisitions.
Among the shareholders who have decided to support and undertake the path outlined in the 2024/2028 business plan, alongside CEO Andrea Cinelli, is Crédit Agricole Italia, which joins the board and will promote synergies with the Village by CA innovation ecosystem, a network that counts 44 Villages worldwide, 4 of which are currently active in Italy, and which is able to accelerate over 150 start-ups. Also included are technology integrator Add Value, a number of Italian family offices and an American holding company that will allow Foolfarm to develop in the United States from 2025 with the opening of an office that will most likely be based in Miami.
‘This collaboration represents a significant step in our commitment to innovation and technological progress,’ Andrea Riva, head of capital markets at Crédit Agricole Italia, commented in a note. We believe in the potential of advanced artificial intelligence solutions and in the work of FoolFarm, which will be able to access our international Village by CA system by developing important synergies with the various players in our ecosystem. The operation reflects our 100% human and 100% digital approach, for a new way of banking aimed at meeting the evolving needs of an increasingly large and heterogeneous customer base even more effectively’.
“As Advisors we are thrilled to have made an important contribution to this first closing of the capital increase of FoolFarm, an Italian excellence of absolute value and, as the entry of the new shareholders shows, with prospects for industrial development and international scalability. We are convinced that, in addition to the capital raised, the ‘strategic’ dimension of the operation and of the players we managed to involve can represent a case study and reference point for the entire Italian innovation ecosystem, and in particular for the AI sector,’ adds Giulio Fezzi, chairman of Phoenix Capital, and Francesco Righetti, director of Phoenix Capital’s innovation centre, who acted as advisor to the operation.
“We are really proud of the entry of these new partners, companies and profiles of absolute excellence,” comments Andrea Cinelli, CEO of FoolFarm SpA, “who have shown full confidence in our project and thus consolidated our growth path at a European level, which wants to lead us to the IPO soon. FoolFarm wants to be the ‘factory’ that will build, in Italy, the new start-ups in generative AI that will develop the huge market of artificial intelligence, solving the great problems of our generation, including climate change, helping to create a venture capital model that is more profitable for investors and more solid for startuppers. Thanks to the entry of Crédit Agricole Italia, FoolFarm acquires a European dimension through the entry of an industrial partner of absolute prestige with whom important industrial synergies can be developed. Finally, the first American shareholders are joining the current capital increase, which will enable us to realise our dream of having our own subsidiary in the US to expand into the rich US market by the second half of 2024′.
Among new projects, FoolFarm announced the Q4 launch of the start-up Xphere, which aims to develop a new generative AI model for companies. (photo: FoolFarm website)
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