Italian venture capital investor P101 has hit a €65m first close for its new fund thanks to backing from the European Investment Fund and Fondo Italiano d’Investimento.
Azimut, Fondazione Sardegna, family offices and entrepreneurs also committed to the first close for Programma 102, which is eyeing a €120m final total.
The firm said it planned to use the vehicle to invest in early to late-stage companies in the B2B and B2C sectors, providing between €1m and €10m per business, as well as a few selected seed operations.
It said the main target of the vehicle would be digital and technology driven companies working in food, fashion, design and travel, as well as real estate, FinTech and cybersecurity. P101 held a €66.7m final close for its debut fund, Programma 101, in late 2016.
The firm has invested more than €40m from that fund in 26 companies over the past four years. Those businesses have included SME lending platform BorsadelCredito.it, fresh food online retailer Cortilia, online wine retailer Tannico and retail data platform Musement.
According to recent research by RegTech Analyst, investors are increasingly backing cybersecurity companies based outside of the US.
Between 2014 and 2017, North America’s share of deals dropped by 12.9 percentage points (pp) from 80.6% to 67.7%. This share further decreased in Q1 2018 reaching 63.7%. This was mainly offset by an increase in deal share in both Europe and the Middle East & Israel. Europe’s share of deals increased from 12.6% in 2014 to 15.9% in 2017. This trend continued in Q1 2018 to reach 18.2%. Similarly, the Middle East & Israel’s share of deals jumped from 4.4% in 2014 to 11.7% in 2017. This value reached 13.6% in Q1 2018, more than triple the original value.
Copyright © 2018 RegTech Analyst
Copyright © 2018 RegTech Analyst
