The new shareholders also include the technology group Add Value, some Italian family offices and a holding of American investors. The company is targeting the United States in 2025 and the launch of the new Gen-AI model, Xphere
FoolFarm SpA Group, an Italian venture builder specializing in Artificial Intelligence, has closed a new investment round of €2.55M with a pre-money valuation of €30M. This contribution represents the first closing of a larger capital increase, launched in June 2024, for a total of €9.2M.
This capital increase will allow the group to develop the 2024/2028 industrial plan which includes 20 new investments within the plan horizon in startups based on artificial intelligence technologies with the aim of reaching the break-even point by 2026 and the stock exchange listing.
FoolFarm adopts an original business model that involves the mass production, from zero to market, of startups in the field of artificial intelligence, both through spin-offs of technologies born in its research and development laboratories in Milan and Lecce, and through the tech transfer of university projects thanks to the Foolers Village program, now present in the universities of Lecce, Sassari and Sapienza in Rome.
The originality of FoolFarm lies in its operation as a real “startup factory” through a proprietary industrial startup-creation process and an exclusive fast prototyping technological platform, FoolCore, which allows the creation of new prototypes and startups in a few weeks. Furthermore, FoolFarm adopts a strategy that has intellectual property at its core, as each startup is always based on international industrial patents. FoolFarm also operates in the corporate world through the offer of Open Innovation FoolFarm Solutions.
Since its inception, FoolFarm has created over €15M in assets, launching five highly successful startups created from scratch in its own laboratories: Voiceme, IIO, Fragmentalis, AidaMask and Snaproof, all with industrial patents that ensure greater value and facilitate M&A.
Among the members who have decided to support and undertake the path outlined in the 2024/2028 industrial plan, alongside CEO Andrea Cinelli, Crédit Agricole Italia has entered the board and will promote synergies with the innovation ecosystem of Villages by CA, a network that has 44 Villages worldwide, of which 4 are currently active in Italy, capable of accelerating over 150 startups. The technological integrator Add Value, some Italian family offices and an American holding company that will allow Foolfarm to develop in the United States from 2025 also appear.
“This collaboration represents a significant milestone in our commitment to innovation and technological progress,” comments Andrea Riva, Head of Capital Market at Crédit Agricole Italia. “We believe in the potential of advanced artificial intelligence solutions and in the work of FoolFarm, which will be able to access our international Village by CA system, developing important synergies with the various players in our ecosystem. The operation reflects our 100% human and 100% digital approach, for a new way of banking aimed at meeting the ever-evolving needs of an increasingly vast and heterogeneous clientele even more effectively.”
The advisor of the operation was Phoenix Capital srl, which decided to support FoolFarm in this path.
As Advisors, we are thrilled to have made an important contribution to this first closing of the capital increase of FoolFarm, an Italian excellence of absolute value and, as demonstrated by the entry of the new partners, with prospects for industrial development and international scalability. We are convinced that, in addition to the capital raised, the ‘strategic’ dimension of the operation and the subjects we have managed to involve can represent a case study and a point of reference for the entire Italian innovation ecosystem, and in particular for the AI sector”, comment Giulio Fezzi, president of Phoenix Capital, and Francesco Righetti, director of the Innovation Center of Phoenix Capital.
“We are truly proud of the entry of these new members, companies and profiles of absolute excellence- comments Andrea Cinelli, CEO of FoolFarm SpA. – who have shown full confidence in our project and thus consolidated our growth path at a European level that wants to bring us to the IPO soon. FoolFarm wants to be the “factory” that will build, in Italy, the new startups in generative AI that will develop the huge market of artificial intelligence, solving the big problems of our generation, including climate change, helping to create a venture capital model that is more profitable for investors and more solid for startuppers. Thanks to the entry of Crédit Agricole Italia, FoolFarm acquires a European scope through the entry of an industrial partner of absolute prestige with which it will be able to develop important industrial synergies. Finally, the first American partners enter the current capital increase that will allow us to realize the dream of having our own branch in the United States to expand on the rich US market by the second half of 2024.”
Among new projects, FoolFarm announced the launch in Q4 of the startup Xphere, which aims to develop a new generative AI model for companies.
