Thanks to the collaboration with Pariter Partners, an advisory and technology investment company founded by Jari Ognibeni and Matteo Elli, 200 crowd has created the first syndicate investing online in Italy.
Their goal is to invest in the round of Checkout Technologies, a company founded by Jegor Levkovskiy and Enrico Pandian which develops Artificial Intelligence at the service of the retail market
A few days after the launch, last June, the syndicates led by Pariter Partners had already collected investment orders for almost 100K euro.
This is the first in a series of syndicate that Pariter Partners will lead thanks to 200crowd to enable business angels and new investors to build a diversified and balanced investment portfolio. Matteo Masserdotti, CEO and founder of 200Crowd, satisfied with the “record” obtained, tells us how syndicate investing can influence the situation of Italian SMEs
The Italian context of Venture Capital is still in an initial development phase. Why were we left behind?
It is certainly a cultural problem. The development of Venture Capital requires the use of international best practices, both regarding the use of shared rules and behaviors as well as diversification and investment according to portfolio logic
According to the statistics (IBAN data 2018) the average portfolio of Business Angels is composed, on average, of only 2 investments and the resources allocated are on average less than 2 million euros. It is therefore clear that the Italian Business Angels, although equipped with important resources, are not diversifying their portfolio. In this way they drastically reduce their chances of returning to this typically high-risk asset class.
Who are your investors? What is the situation abroad?
Our lead investors are active people in the startup ecosystem and have significant entrepreneurial and investment experience behind them. People who decide to co-invest aim to have greater reliability in the selection and management of investment opportunities. Backers are usually managers or entrepreneurs who have a strong interest in investing in innovation. They invest in startups to diversify their portfolio. In the Anglo-Saxon countries this practice is much more widespread, the worldwide reference platform is Angel List
What could promote the dissemination of Syndicate Investing in Italy, especially among non-professional investors?
The first step would be the adoption of international best practices. Financial education and access to more and better information from companies certainly play an important role.
Thanks to the collaboration with Pariter Partners, 200crowd manages to reach an audience of very large potential investors. What numbers are we talking about?
In Italy alone there is an audience of one million people who regularly invest online. This is certainly an important starting point from which people interested in investing in this alternative asset class can emerge.