According to a report by Growth Capital dedicated to startups in the Food & Agriculture sector, last year Italian startups have collected almost 96 millions EUR. Specifically, North Italy drives investments with 20 rounds and 86 million EUR raised, for Central and South Italy remains just the crumbs with the remaining 10 million EUR and 8 rounds totally.

Food Retail stands out in first place in terms of number of rounds closed (8, 28% of the total), followed by vertical farming and alternative protein, with 4 rounds each. As regards the amount invested, Vertical Farming leads with 49.6 million EUR, an increase of 65% compared to 2022. In second place we have Food Retail, for a total of 16.4 million EUR (against 3.7 million in 2022), in third place are the Cloud and Ghost Kitchen with 3 million, compared to 7.9 million in 2022, and the 7 million invested in Alternative Protein, which it seems a sector to invest in 2024.

Most of the money has gone to Planet Farms, followed by Soul-K, which closed a round of 20.5 million, including equity (13 million) and bank financing (7.5 million). Third place for the Milanese brand of fresh pasta restaurants MiScusi, which closed a total round of 10 million, fourth place for Kilometro Verde, of the entrepreneur Giuseppe Battagliola, which received 6 million for the creation a innovative “vertical farming” plant. Finally, Agricooltur, a startup operating in aeroponic cultivation, which completed a series A investment round of 5 million.

Impact investing is the new trend

Agrifood in Italy is one of the sector where the impact investing is spreading most last year. Impact investing refers to investments whose impact must be intentional, measurable and additional to traditional investments. At its core, impact investing is about aligning investors beliefs and values with the allocation of capital to address social and/or environmental issues.

Impact investing can span all asset classes (private equity/venture capital, debt and fixed income) and seeks to invest capital in businesses, non-profits and funds in sectors such as renewable energy, housing, health, education, microfinance and sustainable agriculture.

Oltre III is the third found launched by Oltre Impact - gestore Euveca, the main impact investing operator in Italy, and dedicated to scale-ups with a 100 million EUR target for the 2023. With the three Oltre founds, since 2006 Oltre Impact has helped 45 italian companies as Santagostino, Wonderful Italy, Sfera Agricola and Erbert and collected the first six exits from Oltre II.

No more money for Italian Agrifood

But, will Italian Agrifood be still in sight of impact investor for the 2024? Maybe not. As we learned, startup investments jump a bandwagon depending on trends for two years and change focus very quickly, where the niche achieve the saturation point.

The next wave could be the refurbished market. Last Impact Sgr investment has been in the Austrian scaleup Refurbed which collected in last November’s round led by Evli Growth Partners, C4 Ventures and Speedinvest, All Iron Venture and other new financiers. Thus, Refurbed marketplace bringing the total capital raised by investors to 130 million dollars, after a first round of 2 million in 2018, a second of 17 million in 2020 and one of 54 million in 2021.

Refurbed, founded by Peter Windischhofer, Kilian Kaminsk and Jürgen Riedl, has reached one billion sales volumes (Gross Merchandise Value since its foundation until June 2023), and is one of the main platforms specializing in the sale of sustainable products and services which aims to provide consumers with low-impact technology.

“Consumers replace their smartphones approximately every year and a half, even though they have a useful life of over 3 years. The production of new devices has a heavy impact on soil and water, due to the extraction of raw materials. An effective solution is to extend the useful life of devices through refurbishing, but it is essential to ensure quality and trust in this process said Raffaele Fedele, partner of Oltre Impact sgr”.