The Techshop SGR, through its board of directors, announces that it has approved the closing of the placement of the Techshop I Fund, welcoming new investors, in addition to the approximately 40 existing subscribers, bringing the total amount of subscriptions received to approximately EUR 53 million, thus exceeding the initial target of EUR 50 million.
The SGR launched in 2021 by Aurelio Mezzotero and Gianluca D’Agostino, managers and entrepreneurs with experience in the digital sector, also welcomes CDP Venture Capital as a limited partner (LP) through the Digital Transition Fund, which uses resources allocated by the EU through the NextGeneration EU initiative to foster the digital transition of supply chains and small and medium-sized enterprises.
Techshop I’s LPs already include FoF VenturItaly and CDP Venture Capital’s Fondo Italia Venture II, as well as several prominent banking foundations that support a group of private investors. The latter often contribute to the screening and development of the portfolio. These are women entrepreneurs, consultants and business leaders from the worlds of telecommunications, finance and industry.
Techshop I is a pre-seed and seed fund dedicated to Italian start-ups in B2B software, with a particular focus on SaaS (Software as a Service). It is characterised as an active investor capable of providing support also in operations and focused on technologies capable of improving business processes, such as AI applied to customer care and stock market investments, payment infrastructures and e-commerce, or even on solutions capable of radically innovating those sectors lagging behind in digitalisation, such as banking, mobility services and the hotel sector.
The fund provides not only the financial resources to develop a growth plan shared with the start-up’s founders, but also managerial experience and relationships that often have a positive impact on the invested companies’ chances of success.
Investment activities started in spring 2022, targeting Italian B2B tech start-ups with high growth potential and global ambitions, with a specific focus on Southern Italy and Italian founders abroad. The investment ticket for the ideation stage, hence pre-seed, is typically between EUR 100 thousand and EUR 500 thousand, that for start-ups in the seed stage, hence seed, between EUR 500 thousand and EUR 1.5 million.
Today, Techshop I’s portfolio comprises eleven holdings, which management plans to grow to more than twenty: Hlpy, Tiledesk, Smartpricing, Qodeup, Sbp, Qomodo, AxyonAI, Shop circle, Tot, Syllotips, and the eleventh yet to be defined to be announced soon. Some are already established in their business, capable of completing multiple funding rounds in two and a half years, an indication of operational growth and investor interest. Among these emerging realities are Smartpricing, Shop Circle and Hlpy, which Techshop has accompanied in its development and internationalisation, participating in all follow-on rounds, flanked by venture capital of international standing such as Partech, QED, NFX, Montage Ventures, 3VC and Green Sands.
As a result, the Fund’s Net Asset Value (NAV) increased significantly during 2024, with the TVPI (Total Value on Paid-In, the industry’s most widely used indicator of implied portfolio capital gains) index rising steadily.
In a year, 2024, in which the Italian VC market is becoming more competitive and efficient, with more active players and steadily increasing investment flows, Techshop is positioning itself as the investor of choice for digital B2B start-ups.
D’Agostino and Mezzottero anticipate to Startupbusiness that the new investments they are working on are all based on artificial intelligence, be it development tools or applications: ‘AI is a growing field and the next investments will be in this area, in the meantime it also gives us a lot of confidence to continue in our work that half of the start-ups in the portfolio we have invested in so far have already made it to the Series A round and this is an important signal both for the entrepreneurs and for us as investors, but also and above all for the ecosystem, also in light of the fact that all these subsequent rounds have seen the start-ups raise both from international funds and from other Italian venture capitalists specialised in the growth stages.
“CDP Venture Capital’s Digital Transition Fund manages NextGenerationEU resources dedicated to supporting the innovation and growth of Italian companies in a context of rapid technological change, both by investing directly in start-ups and by stimulating a new generation of investors capable of helping to develop a virtuous ecosystem,” says Enrico Filì, senior partner and head of CDP Venture Capital’s Digital Transition Fund – We are particularly pleased to further strengthen Techshop I, a fund dedicated to the digital B2B world that has already demonstrated in its first years of life that it has actively contributed to the growth of important and successful digital players, in line with our mission to build the Italy of tomorrow by identifying and financing opportunities that create long-term value’.
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