Startups are born and in Italy they are more and more and more and more innovative but then they must grow and consolidate until they become scaleup and then real successful companies. It starts with this goal A-Road with the first batch of acceleration and fundraising for 5 selected scaleups: Barberino’s, GoVolt, HiNelson, Homepal and Indigo.ai. Growth Capital’s elite acceleration and fundraising program has announced the 5 young companies selected who will have the support to face a path of growth and mentoring and so quickly get to the Serie A round to collect new investments and run towards ever more consolidated growth.
Leveraging on a consolidated experience in rapidly growing highly successful companies, mentors they will support scale-ups step by step throughout the acceleration process towards a round from € 2 million to € 10 million. The scaleups involved are the brand dedicated to grooming Barberino’s which focuses on the male lifestyle with an offer that includes barber salons and a range of private label products; GoVolt which operates in the sector of 100% electric last mile urban logistics through a dedicated proprietary technological infrastructure; HiNelson which is the Italian reference point for B2C online sales of components for boating and fishing with a catalog of over 40,000 products and has recently landed in Spain, France and Germany.
Among the 5 scaleups were also selected HomePal which is the first digital real estate agency in Italy, online since 2016, born with the aim of managing the sale and purchase of residential properties in total safety, with savings of over 60% compared to traditional agencies; Indigo.ai which is a complete Conversational Artificial Intelligence platform for designing and building custom chatbots and conversational interfaces. Fabio Mondini de Focatiis, founder and CEO of Cross Border Growth Capital, on the occasion of the kick-off event hosted at the Legance headquarters in Milan he commented that “a team of top CEOs and exceptional mentors, best in class partners in their sector and an investment paid on day 1 are the distinctive elements of an exclusive and unique program of its kind in Italy “. “We are proud – he added – to inaugurate the first batch of A-Road alongside 5 high-potential scaleups who, thanks to the acceleration and fundraising process by a dedicated full time team, will be able to rapidly implement their growth and successfully close a Serie A round “.
The program counts on the contribution of a high profile team of Top CEOs and Mentors, on the training support offered by selected partners, top experts in their reference sector, and on an initial investment of up to 500,000 thousand euros. Driving the growth of the 5 young companies selected are managers of the caliber of Roger Abravanel, Director Emeritus in McKinsey and Co-Founder of Digitail; Marco Ariello, Ex-President of the Moleskine Foundation; Paola Bonomo, Investment Committee member in Neva and Non-Executive Director in Tim, Axa, Piquadro, Sisal, Faac; Nicola Di Campli, Founder DigitalCapitalFactory and Contents.com; Tommaso Gamaleri, CEO of Europe Younited, Milena Mondini, CEO of Admiral Group, Duccio Vitali, CEO of Alkemy; Andrea Zocchi, Director Emeritus at McKinsey and Co-Founder & CEO of Digitail.
The ‘growth’ program for the 5 young companies focuses on a series of workshops, thematic seminars and one-to-one consultancy provided by innovation professionals and A-Road partners who are McKinsey & Company, Amazon, Legance, Carter & Benson, Sisvel, Studio Notai Associati Ricci and Radaelli, Studio Cs and Press Play. Finally, Growth Capital will provide fundraising support, studying a customized approach to the Series A Round for each startup, identifying the most suitable investors and investment structure.
The five scaleups, selected for the first of two annual batches of 6 months each, thus access an initial investment through a convertible instrument from 200,000 thousand euros to 500,000 thousand euros provided by Growth Engine, investment holding company in startups and scaleups with high growth potential founded by Michele Appendino, Marco Ariello, Andrea Marangione and Fabio Mondini de Focatiis, Venture Capital professionals with an excellent track record.