Dear Venture Capital Operators,
This year has been particularly intense for Venture Capital in Italy. We see many people asking questions: some are worried, others are curious. What does the future hold for our ecosystem? Is it really possible to innovate in Italy?
Let’s be clear from the star: we investors don’t have a crystal ball. We can’t predict the future or forecast market trends with certainty for the years to come. What we can do, however, is observe ongoing phenomena, interpret their signals, and reflect on how to actively contribute to building a better future for Italian Venture Capital.
One truth that’s often underestimated but deserves to be reiterated, is that those who choose to work in this sector in Italy do so because they believe in the potential of our country. If we invest time and resources here, it’s because we are convinced that there’s fertile ground to create something meaningful and valuable.
Today, I want to share with you why I believe this is a favorable moment to engage in Venture Capital in Italy. Our ecosystem is young, with no preceding generation of operators to draw lessons from and no established models to guide us. However, this should not be seen as a limitation but rather as an extraordinary opportunity. It means that each of us has the privilege of being a pioneer, of forging new paths, and laying the foundations for those who will come after us. Our choices and actions will profoundly shape the future of this asset class. The more value we can generate for investors and the more success stories we can create, the more trust and resources our ecosystem will attract. This, however, requires a strong sense of responsibility: we must recognize that every decision we make today will have a lasting impact.
How can we make the right decisions in such a young context? Even without the ability to foresee the future, we can take inspiration from more mature ecosystems. It’s not about copying them but learning from them to improve our models and adapt them to the Italian reality.
So, here’s a piece of advice: talk. Exchange ideas with those who have already faced the challenges you are experiencing, those who have overcome obstacles similar to the ones ahead of you. Try to understand the reasoning behind their choices and how these led to their success. Sharing is one of the keys to growth.
At Italian Angels for Growth (IAG), we’ve been organizing Innovation Trips for three years to explore how other ecosystems think and act. We have been to Israel, where we learned how the entire ecosystem works synergistically to consistently create new entrepreneurs; to Silicon Valley, where we understood the importance of attracting talent from all over the world; and to Berlin, where investors showed us how they add value to the companies they invest in. Each of these trips has contributed a fundamental piece to IAG’s strategy, allowing us to make forecasts and hypotheses about how our ecosystem will evolve and what role each of us investors should play in these scenarios. For anyone interested in learning more: you can find our insights here (Israel, Silicon Valley, Berlin). Next May, we’ll be visiting New York and Boston, confident that we’ll discover more diverse best practices to integrate into our ecosystem and insights for our future decisions.
Sometimes, in response to these reflections, we hear: “Okay, but if Italy lacks both money and entrepreneurs, how can we apply best practices?”
Are we sure that’s really the case? Over the past 18 months, 14 new Italian funds have been created, and 6 international funds have opened offices in our country. Never in the history of our ecosystem has there been so much liquidity available. Capital is here; now it’s up to us VC operators and Italian entrepreneurs to seize this opportunity, create value, and prove to the skeptics that the model can work here too.
Moreover, the decision of international funds to open offices in Italy is a strongly positive signal: it highlights how our entrepreneurs are becoming increasingly attractive to foreign VCs, who until recently rarely invested in our country.
Finally, we cannot ignore how artificial intelligence is profoundly transforming the market and its behaviors. When technology begins to significantly impact how companies allocate budgets and resources, new opportunities inevitably arise. Every saving in time or costs becomes a chance to reinvest in something different.
Consider, for instance, time savings: if I used to spend two hours a day writing emails and now, thanks to AI, I can do it in thirty minutes, how will those ninety saved minutes be used? Or think about major players like Amazon: if today they achieve significant savings through AI-driven solutions, where will they invest that capital?
These are critical questions that define new emerging markets, and it is up to entrepreneurs to answer them. As investors, we cannot predict the answers, but we must recognize the value of those entrepreneurs who can read these changes before others and find ways to position themselves effectively.
If from the 1980s to 2000 we didn’t even participate in the hardware revolution, and from 2000 to 2020 we missed the software revolution, today we cannot afford to be mere spectators. We must be protagonists of this transformation, creating and developing technologies, not just importing them.
As I mentioned, we can only observe signs of change and attempt to interpret them.The key word now is trust.
Venture Capital is a team game: it only works if we find enough people who share our vision and want to be part of it.
So, for 2025, I hope for three things:
- More Sharing: That all of us, as operators, learn to communicate what we do and how we envision the future.
- More Trust in the ecosystem: That we believe in its potential and overcome the excessive risk aversion that has characterized our market in the past.
- More Responsibility: That we become aware that every choice we make today will shape the future of Venture Capital in Italy.
To all operators, I wish you a 2025 of transformation and growth. Let’s change our ecosystem together.
With trust,