Join Capital, a German VC fund, reports that it has raised the second fund with an endowment of over EUR 110 million in which CDP Venture Capital’s international fund of funds and other Italian investors also participate. The new fund aims to invest across Europe, with a new focus on Italy, concentrating on industrial deeptech start-ups. Among the investors are also KfW and NATO.
Join Capital invests with tickets of one to five million euro in rounds of two to ten million euro (seed/series A), seeking founders with technical expertise, often with doctorates, who seek to bring significant innovations to industrial fields.
Join Capital has already invested in NewTwen, a company from Padua, in a EUR 7 million round.
“We invest in both software and hardware innovation,’ Federico Fini, who has just returned from an experience in an Estonian fund to become the German fund’s Italian contact person, tells Startupbusiness. ‘Join Capital has an Ambassador Network, a group of about 70 German industrialists with whom we make introductions to the start-ups we are in contact with or have invested in, to support them in their go-to-market. This is just the beginning, Join Capital wants to stay in Italy for the long term and continue fundraising and investing in Italian companies. Italy is a growing ecosystem, an opportunity to be exploited as it is still in its infancy in the market’.
Join Capital is also committed to supporting the ecosystem with office hours, events and other activities for founders. There will be a possible expansion of the team in Italy, both with interns and full-time people.
“I have been scouting Italian start-ups for a few months now and I am positively surprised by what I am finding. So many founders with technical and technological skills, competent in their areas of reference, but often with difficulties in bringing their deeptech innovations to the market. This is why our Ambassador Network complements the needs of the Italian ecosystem well. We work with many German industrial companies with whom we can build contacts and relationships, helping founders to enter a new market and getting technical feedback from potential customers to better evaluate investment opportunities. Personally, I have been working for the last 3 years in the Baltic and Nordic ecosystem, having been based in Tallinn, Estonia. It is a very different ecosystem from Italy, extremely developed and efficient, able to generate unicorns despite the limited number of people doing start-ups. I think there is a lot to learn from them and to import into Italy. I am happy to be able to make a contribution thanks to Join, and give in my own small way a push towards the future of the ecosystem’. (in the photo: Federico Fini)
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