Luca Zabaione has left his head of corporate venture capital and innovation manager roles at Italian bank Banca Sella and joined venture capital firm CDP Venture Capital.
It is unclear who will succeed Zabaione at Sella. Marco Romei, the firm’s head of innovation streams and innovation areas, has CVC in his remit.
Sella conducts corporate venturing through Sella Direct Venture and Sella Venture Partners. The former, formed in 2018, invests between €250,000 and €1.5m ($275,000 to $1.6m) in fintech startups developing compliance, digital assets and open banking technologies, while the latter has been backing VC funds since 2020 through SVP Funds of Funds I and II.
At CDP, Zabaione will be senior investment manager for its Digital Transition Fund. He joined Sella in August 2023 as an innovation and CVC manager, before getting promoted to head in January this year.
Zabaione worked at another banking group, Intesa Sanpaolo, for four years as an innovation leader, first focusing on fintech before adding regtech and AI halfway through his time there.
