«The global venture capital industry is experiencing a recalibration: the valuations of the companies in the portfolio have fallen. If a company was worth a hundred, today it is worth 60-70 not only as a result of the effects of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, but also due to the resumption of inflation, which is having a great impact on values. Nobody knows how long it will last at the moment, but if we look at historical prices, during the crisis there has always been a decline in valuations for about a year and then they go back to previous levels ».
Angelo Moratti, founder of Milano Investment Partners Sgr with Paolo Gualdani, measures the pulse of the situation of the industry not only in Italy and Europe, but also in the United States where the company is investing with the Cliffs fund, which after entering the capital of Skydweller Aero, Sonatus and Elroy Air , now announces investments in HelixNano, Olatec and ORB Aero. «We have decided to launch a deep tech fund, focused on the US, which invests in early stage companies to seize the innovation opportunities that are emerging in Silicon Valley. The Cliffs Fund, with an endowment at the moment of 15 million, has already made six investments, but the goal is to reach a collection of 30 million ”comments Moratti, who adds:“ We invest in companies where we are in good company ”. The fund, in fact, co-invested with names such as Bill Gates, Sam Altman (founder and CEO of OpenAI), Peter Thiel (co-founder of Paypal and first investor of Facebook).
MIP Sgr is one alternative and diversified funds platform by company growth phases and geographical areas: in club deals it operates through U-Start Ventures; in the American early stage on the deeptech vertical with Cliffs; in the consumer sector with a focus on Italy with the new MIP II fund, which will start raising in the coming months. “We start with the fundraising process this summer andcollection target is 250 million, a clear increase compared to the 100 million raised by the first fund. The investments can be follow-ons of MIP I or new investments. The greater endowment of capital will make it possible to invest higher tickets and in more later stage companies, but always in consumer tech mainly in Italy “underlines Moratti, who adds:” The collection will take place in Italy. We are seeing, compared to the past, a greater propensity of institutions to invest in venture capital and in the early stage industry ». Among the pipeline exits for the asset management company there could be the IPO on the London square of Poke House.
The playing field is becoming more and more international also for Italy: «The world of venture capital is becoming increasingly global. The Sequoia fund, which has invested in the largest number of unicorns, has always been focused on the US and China and, instead, is now looking to Europe. In Europe we had 5 unicorns 10 years ago and today we have 50. Of course we still have a few unicorns with a double-digit valuation, but we have examples such as Spotify which is worth 24 billion now ”Moratti comments.