WeSchool is an Ed-tech company that was born at the end of 2016. Their aim is to redesign teaching at schools, universities, and companies to make it more effective and engaging. During the Covid pandemic, when WeSchool was still very young, the awareness of their teaching model grew, and the company reached a community of over two million users. Now, post-Covid, the growth phase is in terms of turnover and head-count.

What is the value added that distinguishes WeSchool from its competitors?

Our value added is ‘Redesigning education’. It could mean a million things, but in our view, it implies a change of framework that is based on four specific pillars: what, who, how and when.

When we think of “what” we are teaching, we are comparing an old model to a new one. In the old model – which is still predominant today – online teaching means using a series of training materials and assessment methods via Web or App.

We believe this concept is rather boring. Our model is based on cooperative teaching, where browsing content makes up for only 30%-40% of the experience. The other part consists of research, discussion, and teamwork with other learners to solve problems, teach each other things, or put what you learned in previous classes into practice.

In short: at no point can learners turn their brain off, since they need to actively keep “doing”.

One very distinctive aspect of our model has to do with people: it’s the “who” pillar. In the old model, a class is made of one or more teachers and some students. In our model, there’s a teaching team made up of instructional designers, teaching assistants who help with tutoring and group work, community moderators who engage and manage day-by-day learning communities, and a creative team that consists of motion & graphic designers, copywriters and videomakers. This requires working in mixed teams, which might be more expensive, but the results are unbeatable when compared to the old model.

Let’s now move to the “how”: in the old model, when people are in a live class (in person), they

are in a group and usually don’t use any technology. On the other hand, when people are working remotely or e-learning, they are “alone,” but using technology. In WeSchool, we believe in an alternative: technology must be used both in person and remotely with a single goal, no matter the context: fostering interaction and collaboration. We offer a whole series of features to use technology in a useful way. Whether users are face-to-face or remote, they are always part of a community and won’t feel that they are working or studying by themselves.

Finally, “when”: In the old e-learning model, you can connect whenever you want and

take lessons whenever you want. However, a model with no common timetable and deadlines does not foster collaboration and participation, resulting in poor retention rates. Our approach, developed back in 2018 and which has increasingly been known as the “bootcamp” or “cohort based” model, is different: we work in “classes,” and there are deadlines to each social learning activity.

What is the technology behind WeSchool?

From a technological point of view, WeSchool is the opposite of an LMS: instead of a platform   that   delivers   content   with   social   features,   WeSchool   is   a   community management and collaboration platform with learning management and content delivery features. Social learning is not a frill: it’s the substance. That’s because WeSchool is a synthesis of two souls: a combination which makes us much different from other EdTech companies. Half of our team has a background in humanities – and they are the people working in teaching and instructional design – and the other half have a tech background.

How did WeSchool meet P101?

I have known Andrea Di Camillo for many years, since the Italian startup scene was as big as my grandmother’s living room. During the Covid years, we were lucky enough to get to choose who we wanted to let into our capital, and we chose P101 for their professionalism, as well as the “feeling” we had, which I believe is a very important factor in the VC-entrepreneur relationship. We collected €6.4 million in our “Series A” round, which was led by P101 and joined by TIM, CDP Ventures, Club Italia Investimenti and Club Digitale.

Further info about WeSchool

Since its first round, WeSchool has doubled its growth year after year, achieving a revenue of €700,000 in 2020, €1.8 million in 2021, and €3 million in 2022. Currently, WeSchool employs 68 people across Europe, mainly in Italy, Spain, and Greece. Their next focus is to increase international turnover in order to grow even faster.

What is WeSchool’s business model and who are its top customers?

WeSchool’s turnover is mostly generated in two ways: the first is selling the use of its platform, and the second is selling Educational Projects and our teaching model, both to   companies   and   schools.   Top   customers   are   both   small   companies   and   large corporations,   including     Amazon,   IKEA,   Intesa   Sanpaolo,   JP   Morgan, Luxottica, NIKE, Qualcomm, and Vodafone.

What are WeSchool future goals?

Conquer the world, always! And then, as my colleague Luca would say: ‘make it to Christmas in one piece’.

Multiply Labs is a company that aims to accelerate the production of individualised and advanced medicines and transform it into an industrial process. To achieve that, they are focusing on robotic technologies and automation.

The company was founded in 2016.

It all started with Alice Melocchi, who, at that time, was a researcher in the field of advanced drugs production. She was looking for a way to accelerate and scale the entire process. She was also considering technologies from different realms, from engineering to chemistry.

One day she contacted a friend of hers – Fred Parietti, soon-to-be co-founder and CEO of Multiply Labs – to go and see his laboratory. Parietti was a mechanical engineering student at MIT. He was working on a robot, a project for which he was employing innovative technologies like 3D printing.

“Alice was interested in my work because I could create prototypes swiftly, which is something unusual for the pharmaceutical industry“, said Parietti.

Soon the two future entrepreneurs fully understood the potential of robotic technology: it can improve the medicine production process. In addition, it allows to manufacture individualised products.

Parietti explained: “In that moment, the idea behind Multiply Labs was born. We decided to create robotic technologies for pharmaceutical companies that enabled them to produce advanced drugs more efficiently and on a vast scale. Until then, that process was fully handmade, especially in the case of biological or cellular therapies“.

A substantial growth

Over the last few years, Multiply Labs has obtained significant revenues, even while the company was still growing, which is something quite unusual in the pharmaceutical industry . They have also managed to build a great network of co-workers that has reached, today, almost 40 employees.

In April 2021, the company was the protagonist of a significant investment. They raised $20 million in a Series A financing round led by Casdin Capital.

Multiply Labs’s clients

Multiply Labs’s business is not addressed at start-ups or SMEs but at big companies. Among its clients are some of the most prominent realities in the pharmaceutical industry, like Thermo Fisher Scientific.

These companies already employ robots which are compatible with Multiply Labs’s features. And this is what makes these work relationships successful.

Over the years, Multiply Labs has evolved into an international company, with employees in the east and west coasts of the United States and in China, in the city of Shanghai.

Indeed, Multiply Labs has developed partnerships with American and Chinese companies.

Multiply Labs’s technology

The most important and appealing aspect of Multiply Labs’s technology is the approach with which is developed. It is also what makes the company stand out from its competitors.

Multiply Labs has built features that can be easily integrated with companies’ tools and processes that, therefore, do not need to be modified.

“We use robotic systems. We also train robots to deal with pre-existing tools. Instruments that, nowadays, are used manually (for example, incubators). Therefore, we add automation to existing processes. We do not replace them. We are the only ones to do it”, underlined Parietti.

Almost all their competitors operate differently. They build machines and tools that work with new systems. Therefore, clients need to adopt new working methods to use them. This can be very challenging, expensive and time-consuming. And it can bring about several technical issues, especially for pharmaceutical companies. For instance, introducing a new environment or nutrient alters the entire process if cells are involved. 

Next steps

Last December, Multiply Labs secured a partnership with a leader company in the Chinese pharmaceutical industry. Then, they took some of their robots to a factory in Shanghai. These robots will produce drugs (capsules) following FDA‘s regulations.

Moreover, Multiply Labs has built a new generation of robots that cultivate cellular therapies. They are carrying on this programme at the University of California in San Francisco.

These advanced robots are also at the centre of a new project. Multiply Labs wants to use them to produce cellular therapies at a commercial level. The company is working to finalise these robots, which are currently in their prototype stage.

Soplaya is an Italian company that has been working on optimizing and speeding up the supply chain of the restaurant industry.

The start-up was born in 2017 in Friuli Venezia Giulia (in the northeast of Italy).

Over its first four years of activity, the company has created a network of clients in ten different cities across the northeast of Italy. Then, in 2022, they further expanded their business in the north and centre of the country.

All this happened with the support by P101, that helped Soplaya secure new investors and keep investing. P101 also offered its support for complex business choices and work management.

Everything began by examining the main problems in the restaurant industry

Soplaya founders – Mauro Germani, Gian Carlo Cesarin, Ivan Litsvinenka and Davide Marchesi – started developing their business by analysing their previous experiences. Indeed, at that time, they had already worked in various areas of the restaurant industry.

“Thanks to our network of restaurants, we had already understood a lot about the sector. For instance, we knew that supply management was very complicated and not always transparent and efficient. And this problem involved every aspect of this process, from looking for new manufacturers and suppliers to delivery“, Germani said.

The four entrepreneurs wanted a deeper understanding of the field. Therefore, they talked with hundreds of other restaurants from all over Italy and other countries. This allowed them to “really discover what happens on the other side of the production chain”.

This search highlighted a few relevant problems. In January, vendors need to establish a fixed price for their products. A price that, later on, can turn out to be insufficient to cover all their costs.

Another relevant issue is the length of the distribution chain. It can bring about difficulties for both restaurateurs and manufacturers. In fact, because of this system, Manufacturers’ revenues become more and more narrow. Furthermore, they often receive their payments after a long time (60, 90 days, or even more). On the other hand, restaurateurs do not find suppliers easily. In addition, it can be difficult for them to figure out the actual price of what they want to purchase. Indeed, it is not uncommon to find massive differences in the cost of a product.

Recently, the situation has become even more complex as raw materials have become increasingly expensive. Also, the food service sector has lost 150-200 thousand employees since the beginning of the Covid pandemic. Thus, restaurants find it more and more arduous to keep up with their schedule. Also, energy is getting pricier than ever.

To face this situation, manufacturers and restaurateurs have two choices: lowering the quality of their products or shortening their supply chain. Therefore, manufacturers are often starting their sales or distribution networks. While restaurateurs are directly addressing manufacturers for their purchases. Nevertheless, becoming independent means more costs in terms of time and money for both of them.

“Soplaya is born to sort all these problems out”, Germani explained. “We shorten the distance between manufacturers and restaurateurs. We create direct connections and support these connections with a full automation of the production chain and a very efficient logistic system”.

Soplaya’s technological tools

In 2021, Soplaya created an essential element of its technological apparatus: an app that allows restaurateurs to manage the provisions of their restaurants.

On this platform, users can:

1. find new products with the help of machine learning, that can show products that match a client’s needs in a short amount of time.
2. accelerate the management of provisions to up to 2 hours every day. Indee, the app and several other tools allow unified payment and BNPL. There is also an additional tool that speeds up the request for samples.

Furthermore, Soplaya has created a system that allows to notify the delivery time to the minute. And, 99,5% of the time, their courier abide to the 2 hours’ time window that the client chooses. The company has also developed features that will allow a complete automation of the production chain, from the delivery process to the management of vendors and prices.

Thanks to all this, the company is playing a role in making the restaurant industry more sustainable: the operations managed with Soplaya’s tools result in low food waste (0.1%). In addition, since they group more deliveries together and employ reusable packaging, they cut CO2 emissions by 50%.

Soplaya and its future

Soplaya aspires to reach a complete automation of the production chain. To do this, they need to introduce machine learning in warehouse operations. Thanks to this, it would be possible to automatically handle demand (restaurants) and supply (manufacturers) and connect the best matches. This would also allow the company to deal with more products and, at the same time, to keep food waste low. Finally, deliveries would remain extremely fast and precise.

The company also desires to strengthen its business presence in the north and centre of Italy. Furthermore, they are planning to work on their BNPL solution to allow automated payments within 30 days.

Finally, Soplaya aims to make restaurant operations fully automatic. They are developing a “premium service” that will comprehend several logistic features and technological tools.

Milkman is a provider of home delivery services. It was founded in 2015 and from the beginning, it has stood apart from its competitors by highly prioritising its customers. Its clients can easily choose among various day and time options for their delivery, and they can also choose the delivery price. The broader the selected time range, the cheaper the delivery.

Milkman was the first to introduce this new dynamics between couriers and clients, which also made the company appealing to the most important Italian retailers. Retailers even overlooked that, in the very beginning, Milkman did not have a national network and only delivered in Milan, Rome, and Turin.

“Retailers understood that a great delivery experience makes the difference”, stated Antonio Perini, Founder and CEO of Milkman. “If the delivery options are not ideal, customers will switch to another platform or won’t proceed with the purchase”.

A fundamental role during the early days of Milkman was played by P101. The two companies started their partnership in 2016. “P101 courageously invested in our idea an idea”, told Perini. “As at the time there were no operations or clients yet”.

Since then, Milkman has built a strong business, and P101 has always been on its side. The latter has also been of great help thanks to its contacts in the Italian market. For instance, this element has been essential to secure a deal between Milkman and Coop.

2020: a new era for Milkman

The year 2020 marked a turning point for the company. Poste Italiane, the most important Italian company for home delivery services, came forward with an offer to buy Milkman. The scale-up decided to supply Poste Italiane with the operative part of its proprietary technology and to keep the intellectual ownership. P101 also helped during the negotiations of this deal.

For Milkman, a service provider, this was the first step to become a tech company. From then on, Milkman began selling its solutions to other companies instead of dealing directly with deliveries.

“We transformed our technology into a product”, explained Perini. “Essentially, our IT department became a source of income”.

This change also brought a new type of clientele: couriers and retailers that cannot use commercial couriers. The latest group includes two main categories: grocery and Big & Bulky (voluminous items).

“We found out that customers are very demanding and that businesses present similar characteristics“, declared Perini. “They need responsiveness (fast delivery processes), flexibility, reliability, transparency and sustainability“.

Nowadays, Milkman has stipulated deals with the most important European retail companies. These deals have allowed the company to launch a “pilot project”. It is a trial programme that entails the use of Milkman’s features in specific European areas. In this way, Milkman acquire data related to the added value of its tools.

The technology behind Milkman

The primary technological tool that Milkman has developed is a platform that includes a group of mobile and web apps. Furthermore, the company deals with the technology behind the interactions with clients. Milkman also allows its clients to offer a series of choices for real-time delivery. These options are generated by taking into account the recipient’s address, the density of the urban area, and the package volume and weight. Besides, this process also includes a predictive analysis of future orders. All this becomes increasingly accurate as the amount of data collected from previous deliveries grows.

In addition, each element we have just mentioned translates into operative guidelines for the supply chain. Guidelines that regulate in detail the entire workday in advance. They include, for example, when and where to move items from a warehouse or instructions for a courier.

Finally, Milkman has to consider that several companies need to smoothly work together to successfully complete a delivery. It is an elaborate and complex process that involves softwares, machine learning and AI.

“Our added value comprehends three factors”, as pointed out by Perini. “Firstly, automation: our software manages everything autonomously. Secondly, customer satisfaction is way higher than it has ever been. Finally, we help reduce expenses because our technology is based on intelligent algorithms that manage the available resources and maximise productivity. Therefore, fleets become more efficient, which means less expensive deliveries“.

What will the future bring?

In the foreseeable future, Milkman wants to keep strengthening its presence in Europe. The idea is to create more partnerships with technological service providers.

Sap, the most important company in the world when it comes to technology for enterprises, has recently started working with Milkman to improve its last-mile distribution. They have also inserted Milkman in their app store for enterprise agents. Since Sap counts more than 400,000 customers all over the world, it is a massive business expansion opportunity for Milkman.

Civitfun Hospitality was born in 2014 with the aim of innovating the interaction between hotel owners and guests in a digital way, starting from check-in and check-out processes. Processes that had not seen any major change in the context of a travel sector that was evolving digitally in many other ways. Mariano de Oleza, Germán March, Javier Gómez, and Massimo de Faveri are the creators of this project.

Just two years after its foundation, the company had already become one of the rising start-ups in its field. It won a Business Travel IBTA 2016 award (“start-up” category) in 2016. Then, in 2021, it became one of the finalists of the South Summit 2021 (“travel” category).

Choosing to work in this business turned out to be a successful move for the four founders. Moreover, the Covid pandemic gave a further impulse to this field, as the tourist industry saw new behavioural patterns emerge. And some of these changes are secular trends that will last for the long run.

Covid brought about a pressing need for digitalisation. Consequently, companies like Civitfun became increasingly relevant. For instance, in 2020, Civitfun registered a +180% in its turnover.

In March 2022, the start-up closed a 2-million-euro round, with P101 as lead investor. P101 was supported by Fabio Zecchini, Operating Advisor at the firm, and Claudio Bellinzona, co-founders of TUI-Musement, a company operating in the traveltech field. Thanks to these new funds, Civitfun managed to strengthen its team, its position in Spain, and explore new markets.

Nowadays, the company has clients in 25 different countries, even if it’s primary market is Spain, its country of origin. The start-up has a significant business presence also in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Columbia, Jamaica, the USA, Finland, Italy, Greece, and the Czech Republic.

What does Civitfun offer?

Civitfun creates services for companies operating in the hospitality industry. Its clients are travel operators, online agencies (Booking.com has chosen the company, for instance), hotels, and tour operators.

As mentioned, the start-up was born as a provider of digital check-in and check-out solutions.

Check-ins are delicate procedures. They involve the collection of guests’ data, which are to be handed to competent authorities. In every country, specific regulations guide the entire process. The digitalisation of check-ins makes  the collection of data easier and faster, and  reduces the risk to commit errors.

Civitfun created a system that integrates its solutions with the Property Management Systems (PMS) of hotels. Through PMS, hotels manage activities and processes that are connected to their business, like reception services, invoices, and housekeeping.

Thanks to Civitfun’s system, each feature can be singularly included in a client’s PMS. Consequently, over time, Civitfun has introduced several new functionalities.

For example, it is now possible to digitally sign a contract of permanence. Furthermore, the company has released an online system to process payments, also when they are made by guests during their stay in a hotel. Indeed, guests can do all operations from their smartphones.

Finally, Civitfun has developed a fully-digital room selection procedure. The company also provides tools to create and submit surveys to customers and for identity verification.

The technology underpinning Civitfun

Civitfun relies on the complete automatization of its systems.

The core aspect of its technology is a proprietary API (application programming interface). This tool allows Civitfun to link its check-in and check-out solutions with PMS. Furthermore, PMS are interconnected, and they work altogether in real time.

Another essential element is the dashboard, Civitfun Hub, a virtual space that the company provides to its clients. After a simple configuration, this platform allows to manage all the above-mentioned services from just one interface. Moreover, the platform allows guests to interact with the online features that hotels offer.

Next plans

Civitfun is now working to reinforce its technology. They aim to make their services compatible with 100 different PMS, as now, their tools can be incorporated into 50 PMS.

The company also wants to increase the number of proprieties that use its solutions. Nowadays, they are 850. The goal is to reach 2000 clients by the end of 2023.

2hire is an Italian technology company working in the mobility industry, enabling digital mobility solutions around vehicles’ connectivity.

2hire was born in 2015 in Rome from the idea of 4 entrepreneurs – Filippo Agostino, Matteo Filippi, Andrea Verdelocco, and Elisabetta Mari.

At the beginning, 2hire launched as an electric scooter sharing service, like Cooltra or MiMoto, aiming to create a scooter sharing service for the students of LUISS University in Rome.

The early development of 2hire as a sharing service soon became more of a technological development, having noticed that the technologies available at the time were quite basic and the available vehicles poorly performing, despite the high prices.

“We started by developing a new technology to manage scooters”, CEO Filippo Agostino explains. “And, when it was ready, we tried to adapt it to other types of vehicles, like cars. And it worked!”.

Therefore, the company switched focus. It moved from being a mobility operator to provide a hardware and software solution for mobility operators. Its core became to build and provide innovative digital mobility solutions to mobility operators.

In September 2017, 2hire entered the LVenture Group acceleration program and received 80.000 euros to develop further its MVP.  Later that year, the company closed a first investment round for 600.000 euros. LVenture Group, Invitalia Ventures, MobilityUP, Boost Heroes, and some business angels contributed to the round.

At the beginning of 2020, the company raised 5.6 million euros in a Round A. The lead investor was P101, along with Linkem (a 5G operator leader in the business of ultra-broadband wireless telecommunications), Invitalia Ventures, LVenture Group.

2hire’s growth got a further boost despite the challenges caused by the pandemic

When the covid pandemic hit, it has dragged the mobility sector along with it. During lockdowns people hardly used vehicles. Nevertheless, 2hire managed to overcome this situation by focusing on development and innovation of its technology solution.

Among its digital solutions, 2hire offers an high tech sought-after device which connects non connected vehicles, enabling data reading and remote interactions with vehicles while limiting contact to a minimum.
While for natively connected vehicles, 2hire started partnering with manufacturers directly, and to work side by side with them to enable the connectivity functionalities for mobility operators while providing valuable feedback to OEMs for their enhancement and development of the technology made available.

2hire race to the connected revolution embarked on an upward path by closing contracts with some of the top players in the market from major carmakers to car rental companies and P2P sharing companies leader in their markets.

As of now, 2hire keeps pushing forward and is three times bigger than in 2019, with more than 35 people in the team.

2hire has an international outreach, by working in 16 countries worldwide with more than 20k vehicles connected by its technology. The company’s European presence is firmly established and since 2022 it has also been actively operating in the US market.

For 2023 the company has already secured important contracts with leading mobility operators to support them in their digital transition, which in turn will boost the number of vehicles connected through 2hire technology and the spread of more and more digital services around them.

 2hire –  Technology and Features

2hire enables mobility operators and service providers to harness the built-in technology of connected cars, digitise the user experience, and provide the newest value-added services around. 2hire built Adapter, the standardized API layer to communicate with all vehicles of the major car manufacturers, creating mobility services with a single and universal access point. 2hire collaborates with leading car manufacturers to exploit the full potential of connected vehicles and bring up innovative services around vehicle’s connectivity.

The current mobility scenario presents a duality between non-connected and natively connected vehicles. 2hire is leading the transition from non-connected to natively connected vehicles by providing one solution to integrate them all.

For non-connected vehicles, 2hire offers a proprietary hardware solution that can be integrated into a vehicle enabling data reading and interactions, with a non-invasive installation that can be performed by non-skilled users in less than 10 minutes and is currently compatible with every model in the market.

While when it comes to natively connected vehicles, 2hire partners with manufacturers to integrate natively connected vehicles and help carmakers shape the solution around new mobility players’ needs.

Upcoming moves

2hire aims to lead the connected vehicle revolution by positioning itself as the leading technology solution which makes it possible to manage fleets of connected and non-connected vehicles with the same integration.

2hire is seizing this transitional period in which many market players have, or will have soon, hybrid fleets, composed of both connected and non-connected vehicles, to gain market share and provide its solution by making it possible to manage both kind with one single integration.

Regardless of the temporary economic weakness, the market of Software as a Service seems to be thriving: by 2025, spending for cloud services – the quintessence of SaaS – will increase by 17% per year. This business is rising because it allows companies to optimise and automate several functions related to archiving and data processing. Hence, it helps them save on  fixed expenses. Start-ups can benefit from this long-term trend if they will innovate and balance growth and profitability.

SaaS (software as a service) is a key field for the future development of our economy, even if it is currently experiencing a downfall, like every other industry. Thanks to SaaS, enterprises in the commodity industry can use necessary IT tools (i.e. cloud storage) without buying them. Companies can pay according to how much they use the technology. Hence, there are structural reasons that will force start-ups with the necessary capabilities to innovate in this field.

SaaS: what do numbers tell us?

The data concerning the SaaS industry are a clear indicator of its relevance. The spending for clouds (the quintessence of Saas) will exceed 1,3 trillion dollars by 2025 (with a yearly growth of 16,9%). And, as stated by an IDC study, private clouds –infrastructures of cloud computing whose hardware resources are dedicated to a single organisation or user – will grow at an even higher rate, +31% per year.

Furthermore, IDC reports that in 2021 the spending for private clouds increased by 8,8% (reaching 73,9 billion dollars). By the end of 2022, it is expected to increase by 21,7% and reach 90 billion dollars. Additionally, the companies’ implementations concerning the cloud are divided between on-prem and hosted pretty equally. On the other hand, the expenses for non-cloud infrastructures are likely to decrease by 0,3%, dropping to 59,4 billion dollars.

Status quo: SaaS has not escaped from the crisis, but venture capital looks ahead

The first data we can observe is that evaluations, especially of listed companies, are dropping because of the macroeconomic scenery. Nevertheless, we believe this recession will be transitory. Moreover, we think that the 290-billion-dollar revenue which VCs are employing to finance start-ups can constitutes a cash reserve – or dry powder, in technical terms – that will give new energy to the market in 2023.

The activity of venture capital is, by definition, patient, and VCs have long-term plans. They take into account the potential of the business in which they decide to invest more than its current value. Clearly, for start-ups operating in the private cloud business, this is a weak period of time. However, we still deem their business model represents the most innovative paradigm shift since the invention of the internet. Their potential persists and will keep growing.

Goodbye unicorns! Now it is time for centaurs (smaller but profitable)

A further element that strengthens our conviction is that the interest in the concept of “unicorn” has faded. This term is sometimes associated with inflated evaluations that do not match corporate fundamentals. According to the latest Pitchbook’s Unicorn tracker, more than 580 unicorns were born in 2021 (+120% in one year). On November 1st, 2022, there were 1.230 unicorns around the world. Therefore, this classification does not seem to be so relevant anymore.

Pitchbook bases its mapping on a very restrictive definition of “unicorn”. It only considers venture-backed companies with a valuation of at least 1 billion dollars. Nonetheless, this classification still includes too many companies.

Anyway, every day 1,5 unicorns are born. They ceased to be rare animals long ago, shortly after Aileen Lee (venture capitalist and founder of Cowboy Ventures) coined the word in 2013 to describe 39 billionaire hi-tech companies (among them Facebook, LinkedIn, Workday and Twitter).

This term has been replaced by “centaur”. A word which describes businesses with an annual recurring revenue (ARR) of at least 100 million dollars. Something rare for the cloud industry. Therefore, these companies constitute an élite category in the growing crowd of unicorns. A new mythological animal which will inevitably replace the first one.

How can start-ups succeed in the current market?

We can now elaborate a vademecum to help start-ups navigate the current market scenery. Nowadays, it is essential to:

1. Balance growth and efficiency. If a company lacks funds – because of its investors’ withdrawal or the systemic crisis – It needs to monitor the trade-off between growth and profitability. This will guarantee its survival. Obviously, it should also carry on a precise plan that considers the need for development and profitability.
2. Keep investments under control. During challenging times, it is necessary to evaluate and rationalise expenses. Hiring only if strictly necessary and concentrating on core projects are helpful rules for a business with limited assets.
3. Focus on everything that works out and make it grow exponentially. The key is to focus on a few strategic elements. This is a fundamental point for start-ups operating in the SaaS industry since they only develop if on vertical markets. Additionally, it has been proven that these companies can add value to the entire supply chain if they specialise vertically.

Sustainability is a social, economic, and political priority. However, the fact that we need technological progress to get more results is still not stressed enough. As history shows, start-ups and venture capital play a central role in innovation. The tech solutions of these VC-backed enterprises represent the digital backbone for future sustainable models of consumption and production. Here are the most promising sectors.

South Pole was founded in Switzerland. It operates in 50 countries, has 23 branches and 700 employees. The company is a world leader in the sector of climate change mitigation. It is a growing industry: over the last seven years, 78 “green” start-ups have been valued more than 1 billion dollars. Among them, 43 work in in mobility, and transport; 13 in agriculture, food, and territorial protection; 10 in mechatronics and logistics; 10 in goods production; 9 in energy.

International finance and venture capital are investing on green tech start-ups, as they provide decarbonisation solutions for the manufacturing industry. It’s a wide market encompassing many business compartments: energy efficiency, materials recycling, circular economy, and others. It can also involve logistics and supply chain solutions, as well forms of compensation, such as certified carbon credits.

Green tech is worth almost 90 billion dollars

The latest State of Climate Tech Report by PwC shows that, between 2020 and 2021, the invested capital in green start-ups grew by 210%, reaching 87,5 billion dollars. A trend that seems to be continuing also in 2022.

In Italy, by the end of 2021, there were 486 start-ups with a significant social and environmental impact (according to the Social Innovation Monitor by the University of Turin). This figure had increased by 28,2% from the previous year when it was 349. If we compare this number with the total number of Italian innovative start-ups, we can see that it’s a small percentage: the environment-friendly enterprises were 3,1% by the end of 2020 and 3,8% in 2021. Nevertheless, this figure is growing. But we need regular and substantial financing, and a strategy.

Sustainability means digital progress

Surely, there is great attention to sustainability nowadays. However, the correlation between this subject and the ongoing digitalisation process is not underlined enough.

More and more “green” business prospects are developing vertical tech solutions that are the backbone for future sustainable models of consumption and production. Models that will also be more resilient to climate change. The talents, entrepreneurs, and professionals leading this trend believe in these epochal cultural challenges. They are creating so-called “purpose-driven” companies, whose business missions include improving the social and/or environmental status quo and which are, incidentally, also very attractive for young and bright talents.

Innovative green solutions: energy

The energy industry is fundamental in the process of ecological transition, so much so that it was the main subject of the COP27 animated discussions in Sharm El Sheik. In Europe, and especially in Italy, innovating the energy industry is of relevance for environmental sustainability and energetic autonomy (which is necessary to depend less and less on gas imports).

Ecological transition clearly means renewable energy sources and decentralised production. However, both are, by their nature, intermittent and cannot cope with a constant demand of energy. So we will see a consistent increment of energetically independent communities which however will need to be connected to central distributive systems. Fun fact: Italy was one of the first countries to legislate on the matter of energetic independence.

To match supply and demand we will need to develop digital solutions that can manage energy flows in a decentralised way. Furthermore, we will need to create tools that can incentivise and monitor users production and consumption of energy, so as to allow them to be producers and suppliers as well as consumers. Some companies are already developing tech solutions that work to create this scenario: a few examples are Spectral Energy, Energy Web, and Power Ledger.

Green mobility

Mobility is another industry that is currently experiencing a significant green evolution. The European Union has further incentivised it by advocating for a full electrification of the automotive industry by 2035. Strongly motivated by new laws, customs and propriety models are radically changing, and the major players are starting to consider new paths.

Our experience with the start-up company Bipi is a clear example of this trend. Bipi has developed the concept of “Car as a Service”: users consider vehicles not as proprietary assets but as a service. Renault, one of the major automotive groups in the world, understood that this new perspective could be a useful tool for its development strategy and acquired Bipi in 2021.

As mentioned, a relevant evolution of the mobility industry is that of the technological transition from thermoelectric engines to electric vehicles (EVs). A tight schedule pushes this transition. As this process requires the development of an infrastructure to charge electric vehicles, we believe that it will bring about relevant innovation.

Indeed, the electrification of private transportation and commercial fleets will be an area of development where innovative companies will play a key role.  For instance, they are creating new solutions for battery replacement and charge (see ReeFilla); they are designing new sharing and flexible rental solutions (Bipi, FlexCar); they are developing a more flexible and environment-friendly way to organise business fleets (see PandaGo). Furthermore, they can explore further the integration between micro-mobility and public and private mobility.

EdTech and corporate sustainability: a triple-digit growth is expected

Non-financial performances (i.e., the environmental, social, and governance ones) are increasingly impacting corporate access to credit, for this reason companies are looking for solutions that can make them more sustainable. So, since the corporate world has expressed great interest in services related to sustainability, we believe that this kind of EdTech will have a triple-digit growth.

Indeed, many edTech companies are developing technological solutions to measure and monitor emissions, reduce a company’s energetic footprint and pursue carbon offset. Additionally, edTech start-ups are developing apps to raise awareness and educate companies’ employees and clients on sustainability.

The corporate world will be more and more interested in finding new ideas to reduce direct and indirect emissions. This means solutions that impact their entire value chain: from the provision of materials to how their final consumers use their products and get rid of them. This is already happening: the Italian start-up AdWorld works in this industry and has become an official partner of the UN project “Act Now”.

Monitoring carbon footprint and work on carbon offset

Nowadays, software solutions allow companies to monitor their environmental footprint constantly and accurately, with different complexity levels and targets (from big corporates to SMEs). Some established companies, like Planetly (acquired by One Trust in 2022) and CarbonSink (acquired by South Pole) are working on these solutions, as well as some star-ups, such as A-Planet and Ecomate.

Besides monitoring and reporting solutions, some companies are working on the reduction of their carbon footprint and on projects of carbon offsetting (which means financing projects in developing countries through Carbon Credits). These projects often include external players that, thanks to their digital native approach, disintermediate complex production chains and guarantee greater transparency and traceability. Among them, we find very ambitious and promising realities like Green Future Project and Up2You.

All these projects and solutions reveal a growing attention towards digital solutions, which will allow for an efficient – and hopefully fast – transition to a more sustainable world. Many factors make this “green wave” increasingly powerful: from national and international legislation to consumers’ demands, to the financial world. We want to invest on businesses that can ride this wave and contribute to creating a sustainable infrastructure for our future.

Wonderflow is a B2B tech company. Based in Amsterdam and established by three Italian founders – Riccardo Osti, Giovanni Gaglione and Michele Ruini, – its core business is an AI software that exploits the proprietary NLP (Natural Language Process) technology for analyzing what is called the “voice of customers” (VoC) of a brand and its competitors, and therefore online product reviews, results obtained from customer service, surveys and more.

How does its software work?

Wonderflow’s technology uses machine learning and AI to process an unlimited number of unstructured texts and gain new and helpful information. It can process 13 different languages, including Arabic and even some Asian idioms.

Wonderflow gets the raw data directly from a company’s customers. For example, they listen to clients’ voices and collect their profile data. They also take into account reviews on Google, Amazon and TripAdvisor. In addition, they analyse comments on social media, answers to pools, and interactions with customer care – such as emails, phone calls, and conversations with chatbots.

Wonderflow: how everything started

Osti, Gaglione, and Ruini met in 2014 in the Italian city of Trento. In that period, that area was about to become the home of Hit – Hub Innovazione Trentino, a new centre for technology and innovation, a sort of small Italian Silicon Valley.

Wonderflow was born one year later. In 2017 they moved to Amsterdam to take part to an acceleration program. Then, the founders completed the final structure of the company in Italy, precisely at Hit – Hub Innovazione Trentino. . In the last year, the company’s turnover has been growing by more than 65%. Nowadays, Wonderflow can count on a network of more than 100 collaborators in 15 countries.

Among Wonderflow’s clients are companies like Philips, Electrolux, Pirelli, Delonghi Group, Beko, Colgate Palmolive, Reckitt Benckiser, Carrefour, DHL and Kantar.

The start-up collected around $24 million in 3 investment rounds – the last one was led by the Canada-based investor Klass Capital, along with P101, to support the international expansion in EU and USA, where the company has already hired the first salesmen to drive the business growth.

A bit of context

Wonderflow works in the customer analytics vertical: this industry is growing by 17% every year and is worth $9 billion, according to Gartner data.

Companies usually go through 4 different phases connected to customer sensitivity. Firstly, they interact through social media engagement tools. In the second phase, companies understand that they can use these interactions to improve their business, so, they start collecting data. Then, they equip themselves with a system that helps them examine and study those data. Finally, there is a fourth step that is characterised by a data-driven approach to strategy.

How does Wonderflow enter this process?

Wonderflow specifically works in the latest phase of this process. It helps understand what clients want and how to deal with their requests. The company can also control the impact that a specific action has.

Osti explains: “We collect all these data and insert them into a software that analyses and evaluates them. Then, our client learns which are their customers’ requests and can adapt their product or service accordingly”.

To do this, the company has developed an essential tool: the Wonderboard. It is an interface that contains all the collected and processed data. Clients can access this platform and analyse and utilise those data.

Through the Wonderboard teams can communicate and speak the same language. It connects departments that rarely interact: for instance, customer care and advertising. This helps companies get better performances and results.

Furthermore, the Wonderboard provides managers with an innovative and fast way to get information concerning their business.

What makes Wonderflow different?

Several accomplished companies, like Ibm, Sas, and Clarabridge, work in customer analytics. Nevertheless, none of them has developed their AI section like Wonderflow has.

Wonderflow is, to date, the most specialised company in this industry.

“We have developed the most accurate language analysis technology, as it can simulate people’s interpretative skills”, says Osti. “We made it accessible to every user, even those who don’t have any tech knowledge. This technology allows our clients to save up to 90% of the time and resources they usually put into research. Furthermore, it finally makes them consumer-centric”.

With its technology, Wonderflow has brought many improvements to the industry of customer analytics.

Its linguistic analysis is 50% more accurate than every other solution on the market. And this is essential for companies to choose investments correctly and effectively.

In addition, Wonderflow uses the first perceptual analysis technology for customer care in the world. By examining data, the system endeavours to improve, for instance, a product that is rated 3,5 out of 5 on Amazon. The producer receives indications to improve it and reach a higher score.

Thus, Wonderflow’s clients rely on a mathematical system and do not proceed by trial and error. Furthermore, they also understand what they need to do to stand out from their competitors.