Costantino Mariella has been a UK-based senior venture capital investment manager at Sony Innovation Fund (SIF), a corporate venture capital (CVC) subsidiary of Japan-headquartered consumer electronics producer Sony, since April 2017.
Antonio Avitabile, managing director of Europe for SIF’s other investment vehicle, Innovation Growth Ventures, said: “Costantino (Costa) has been working for me for the past 15 years. He has a number of qualities but one key quality I see in Costa is his ability to make decisions in a very detached way without involving emotions. This is for me the one major skill that a good investor needs to possess – never fall in love with your investments and your investment strategy.
“In the past few years, Costa sourced a plethora of deals and executed a number of different deals ranging from direct equity investments, convertible loan agreements to joint development agreements.
“Costa understands the big picture while always being careful to the details that many times represent the real showstoppers. Costa not only serves as board observer in [mapping technology developer] What3words and [musical sampling service] Tracklib but also supports me with other portfolios such as [autonomous drone developer] Fotokite (Perspective Robotics), [indoor drone technology developer] Verity and [vision technology developer] Prophesee.
“Costa has been building a large network not only among serial entrepreneurs but also with successful VCs and CVCs.”
In his current role, Mariella leads the entire investment dealflow, from origination to execution and post-investment management. Having overseen multi-million dollar investments in several sectors including semiconductors, robotics, mobility, music and network communications, he also looks for investment and partnership opportunities for Sony’s business units such as PlayStation, Home Entertainment and Sound, Sony Mobile and Semiconductor.
Mariella holds a master of science in electronic engineering from Italy’s University of Bologna and an MBA from Brazil’s Fundação Getúlio Vargas.
