B Heroes is a Venture Capital firm active since 2016. B Heroes focuses on early stage (pre-seed and seed) investments to support Italian entrepreneurs around the globe from day 0 with their ecosystem and platform initiatives.

B Heroes

B Heroes è un ecosistema di iniziative a supporto della crescita delle startup italiane più innovative per aiutarle ad affrontare con successo il mercato e per creare un nuovo tessuto imprenditoriale in Italia anche grazie alla collaborazione di aziende mature.

B Heroes 

#MonthlyRoundUp | July

Wow, July was absolutely hectic! With big acquisitions and key partnerships, it’s been a whirlwind for B Heroes portcos. Check out the highlights below.

💻📱 Bending Spoons continues its exponential growth. In the last month, it has defined two major acquisitions: the first, Issuu, a digital publishing company, and the second, WeTransfer, a digital file-sharing giant. The latter is the Milan-based unicorn’s biggest acquisition.

💳 💲 Through a new partnership signed with Mesh, the fintech startup Conio has announced that they will start the first open banking for Bitcoin in Europe.

📈📝 Contents has defined two important strategic acquisitions in the field of AI-supported content creation. It acquires Zulla by Contents implementing its copywriting tools and also acquires 4W Marketplace, enabling it to expand its capabilities in the distribution and effectiveness of advertising space.

📚🧑‍💻 EPICODE is among the top 20 technology education companies globally, the only one in Italy in the STEAM cluster within HolonIQ’s new Global Education Outlook 2023 report.

🧊🍎 FrescoFrigo, after years of R&D investments into its technology, has registered a patent. It’s the only company in Europe with a registered patent.

🗂️📊 The Berlin-based startup sykell has been honored by the German Packaging Institute with the German Packaging Award 2024 for its SaaS solution CIRCULAR ERP, as the winner in the Digitalization category.

📝📉 TailorTask has launched its first demo, an A.I. solution for automating mundane tasks effortlessly and empowering non-technical users to brief an AI, improve a workflow plan, provide feedback, and maintain control. Here is the link for the demo ➡️ https://lnkd.in/dSSDuebY

Super! Luca Ferrari Christian Miccoli Vincenzo Di Nicola Massimiliano Squillace Ivan Ranza Elena Costa Enrico Pandian Davide Mazzanti Michael A. Kappler Vittorio Banfi

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#startup #bheroes #venturecapital #innovation #monthlyroundup

📊 Which are the topics to consider when transitioning from a founder-led to a management-led company?

A couple of weeks ago we gathered some of our portfolio companies for the third session of our #PortfolioMeetup focusing on the management of resources during the growth of a startup. 

Guest of this session was the B Heroes Foundes Club member Alessandro Petazzi, co-founder and former CEO of Musement who shared his experience about the transition from early-stage to growth. Ale provided us with many insights to bring home whose common point is to avoid inefficiencies due to loss of information among the management.

Among these, the 3 main takeaways that we and our portcos bring home are the importance of introducing a figure like the Chief People Officer, the ability to translate information to align the team, and introducing from the beginning the dual-career path. 

Of fundamental support to the discussions and to whom a big thank you goes are Paolo Andreozzi of Jobtech, Paolo Facchetti of Dove.it, and Pasquale Emanuele Scopelliti of Snowit. 

#bheroes #venturecapital #innovation

#MonthlyRoundUp | June

As June and summer began, B Heroes portfolio companies did not stop and continued to be a source of news and updates. Below is a sneak peek of the last few weeks:

📡🖥️  Babylon Cloud, thanks to Babylon Stream and the collaboration with Minerva Pictures, introduces Smart Vision TV, a new free streaming platform that is redefining the way people watch movies and TV series that guarantees a catalog of more than 500 titles with impeccable resolution.

💇🏻‍♂️✂️ Barberino's launches a new app that increases service personalization and introduces gamification, a new booking experience, and a digital wallet within the app.

📈📝 Contents, the innovative generative artificial intelligence platform, has launched an equity crowdfunding campaign on the Crowdcube platform.

📙💼  Jobtech has been included in the top 10 of ChooseMyCompany's #HappyIndexAtWork.

♻️👩🏻‍🌾 Planet Farms, agritech company in hashtag vertical farming, wins a 6.9 million euro EU-funded PNRR call for proposals. Aim: to develop the logistics system of the new plant in Cirimido.

🎓📚 Talent Garden Italia, announces the introduction of a new CEO, Giuseppe Mayer, who will have a specific focus on the Italian market, the group's first market. 

🌎📃 Workfully has been recognized among the most innovative HR tech companies transforming the industry being mentioned among the “Startup to watch in 2024” by Sifted.

🧑🏻‍🏫💻 zick learn was included inside the 8 startups among 250 to participate in the H-FARM acceleration program, FutureED. In addition, zick learn was mentioned for the second year in a row inside HolonIQ Europe EdTech 200 list.

Super! Alessandro De Losa Michele Callegari Niccolò Bencini Massimiliano Squillace Paolo Andreozzi Angelo Sergio Zamboni Luca Travaglini Daniele Benatoff Giuseppe Mayer Davide Dattoli Zhang Valerio Rossi Stefano Tacconi Matteo Penzo

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#startup #bheroes #venturecapital #innovation #monthlyroundup

🤩 You've probably never seen so many term sheets as in 𝗗𝗥𝗜𝗡𝗞&𝗗𝗘𝗔𝗟!

How many times have you walked away from a term sheet because you just didn't vibe with the investor? And how often have you missed out on a deal because the founder seemed too hazy?

Well, last Thursday we proved that sometimes what you really need is to step out of the formal setting and tackle negotiations with a good dose of spontaneity.

The use of proceeds is always the same. 

Break the ice with a tasteful cocktail (meticulously designed with Mr. Dee Still) and engage with as many people as possible. The deal you've been looking for may be just around the corner.

That's what 𝗗𝗥𝗜𝗡𝗞&𝗗𝗘𝗔𝗟! is all about. It's the place where we break down barriers through OOO (out-of-the-ordinary) moments.

And guess what? Together with Qonto, Mamacrowd, and Contents, we managed to finalize an unbelievable number of [fake] term sheets.

👏🏻 Thank you to all who participated and shared the value of unconventional networking.

See you at the next 𝗗𝗥𝗜𝗡𝗞&𝗗𝗘𝗔𝗟!

P.S: We hope we have convinced you that 𝗗𝗥𝗜𝗡𝗞&𝗗𝗘𝗔𝗟! is the place to be. Link in the comments to join us ⬇️

Carolina Montagna Tommaso Moraca Michele Lia Nicolò Guanziroli Evgenia P. Ida Cinzia Positano Mariano Spalletti Lorenzo Zatini Emilia Maria Pezzini Chiara Vigilante Federico Rastelli Cristina Scavarda Edoardo David Massimiliano Squillace Alberto Maria Gambino Anamarija Murdjeva

#drinkanddeal #bheroes #venturecapital #innovation #informalnetworking

#MonthlyRoundUp | May

A brief overview of news from our portfolio companies over the past month: 

👞♻️ ACBC received the “Imprese Vincenti 2024” award, sponsored by Banca Intesa for the enhancement of small and medium-sized enterprises.

💳 💲 Conio reaches the figure of 25 currencies within its portfolio of digital assets enriching itself with the addition of Ethereum, Solana, Ripple, Polygon and Avalanche. From 2015 to date that figure has doubled amenting the variety and accessibility of the product.

📈📝 Contents.com, a leader in artificial intelligence-driven content creation for enterprises, has been selected for NVIDIA's Inception Program, a prestigious initiative that recognizes innovative companies driving industry transformation globally. 

💸🧾 Jet HR drops inside 10% of SaaS startups with the highest growth rate worldwide. Reached 1 million ARR in just 10 months.

🎮⚽️ Mkers S.p.A., an esports startup that focuses on competitive gaming, consolidates its international positioning through participation in the World Cup in Riyadh. It will be the first Italian team to participate.

🧬💉 Rubedo Life Sciences, a San Francisco-based biopharmaceutical company engaged in the development of therapies that contrast age-related diseases, has closed a $40 million Series A round led by Khosla Ventures and Ahren Innovation Capital in which we co-invested with IAG.

🌷💬 This Unique after building a dense network of partnerships, more than 120, further strengthens its B2B channel through a new website. (➡️ https://lnkd.in/dz_ckw9e)

🔋🖥️ Vaire Computing, a London-based startup that is pioneering reversible computing, was ranked #1 globally by Dealroom.co across all AI chip companies at the seed stage across Top Rank and Fastest Growth categories.

💻 ♻️ Bending Spoons and Planet Farms, were recognized as one of the most impactful startups in the Italian innovation landscape according to Tech.eu's ranking.

Super! Gio Giacobbe Edoardo Iannuzzi Christian Miccoli Vincenzo Di Nicola Massimiliano Squillace Marco Ogliengo Francesco Scalambrino Paolo Cisaria Thomas De Gasperi Marco Quarta Mark Gallop Alice Carbonara Lisa Iannello Vincenzo Mansi Ludovico Grassi Rodolfo Rosini Hannah E.Luca Ferrari Luca Travaglini Daniele Benatoff 

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#startup #bheroes #venturecapital #innovation #monthlyroundup

A quick wrap-up of the cool stuff that just happened 🔝

Last week we had the pleasure to join the international summit Tech.Emotion Summit 2024 by Emotion Network. Among great international speakers, an inspiring Howard Schultz inspired us with his journey of building Starbucks, highlighting the power of purpose-driven leadership and discussing with the visionary Brunello Cucinelli about AI's future development and impact.

On Thursday, we attended an interesting panel on “M&A and Venture Capital” organized by Banca Sella where we listened to three different acquisition experiences from Italian startup operators, explaining the ins and outs of the process and the value they obtained. We believe such stories need to be shared more as M&A is a critical lever still unexploited in the ecosystem.

Finally, we had the privilege of joining the fundraising workshop hosted by Qonto during #StrongHer, a business training program dedicated to women entrepreneurs who want to digitize their businesses. During this second week of mentorship sessions and workshops, our investment associate Tommaso shared our vision about best practices, valuable approaches, and challenging tradeoffs to consider when raising capital.  

Carolina Montagna Giovanni Calabrese Emilia Maria Pezzini Lorenzo Zatini Alessandro Zaccaria

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#startups #venturecapital #innovation #ecosystem #community

IT:BHEROES

B Heroes

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