Credem, an Italy-listed bank majority-owned by the Maramotti family, has launched a corporate venture capital program.
The unit, Credemtel, has a few million euros invest in seed and early-stage fintech, supply chain, and cybersecurity startups.
Piergiorgio Grossi, Credem’s chief innovation officer since the end of 2018, said: “Corporate venture capital was born as an important but natural transition point in the group’s open innovation process. We started attending the startup world for an exchange of experiences and for inspiration.
“We then moved on to participate in scouting, acceleration and incubation programs with those with important skills on the topic until starting to work with startups on various innovation projects. It therefore came naturally to think of the opportunity, in some cases, to participate in the company by investing in the startup itself.”
Separately, the Italian government has threatened use of its golden veto to prevent the corporate venturing deal for local financial startup Satispay over use of personal data.
The intervention on the “acquisition by Tencent Cloud BV and Square Inc. of minority stakes in the share capital of Satispay Spa” dates back to the Prime Ministerial Decree of 22 February, as soon as the new government took office.
Square and Tencent were expected each to invest €15m ($m) as part of a deal worth €90m (€68m as new capital, €25m for the transfer of shares) at a market valuation of almost €250m.
