1.5 Million Round for the StartupGym, Almost Half from Crowdfunding

StartupGym, a startup studio launched in early 2021 by Enrico Pandian, Tarek Fahmy, and Giuseppe Balzano, has closed a $1.7 million (€1.5 million) round. Of these, $962,000 (€850,000) came from family offices and professional investors, the rest from retail investors, and another $743,000 (€656,000) from an equity crowdfunding campaign on the Italian portal CrowdFundMe. The campaign, launched last September, was overfunded from the very first day and ended with an overfunding of 656%, beating the minimum fundraising target of $113,000 (€100,000), and coming close to the maximum target, set at $849,000 (€750,000). Startup Gym started the campaign with a pre-money valuation of $9 million (€8 million) and closed it increasing it to $10.75 million (€9.5 million).

The most relevant professional investors in the round include: Luca Rancilio’s family office Rancilio Cube, which has already led 40 million investments in Deliveroo, Casavo, Treedom, Freeda, Supermarket24, Soundreef, SpaceX, Airbnb, N26; Verona-based family office UTurn Investments, founded by Gianpiero Peron and Luca Mongodi, which relies on a holistic approach to managing family assets and generational transitions; Anya Capital, a global startup investment holding company led by Guglielmo Notarbartolo di Villarosa, with a portfolio of more than 35 companies including Deliveroo, Bun Burger, Sumup, Misterb&b, Naadam cashmere, Freeda and Will Media. Also signing on to StartupStudio’s campaign were business angels Matteo Fabbrini (Maikii, FoodRacers, Gamindo) and Mirko Maria Storelli (tummyskitchen).

Read more about the crowdfunding campaign closed by StartupGym and find the most important business news of the day with the born2Invest mobile app.

Each year StartupGym will validate about 20 MVPs (test products) with a team of 12 people

In his business plan reads: “This seed round of $1.7 million (€1.5 million will be used to finance the runway of the Studio for the next 24 months, will cover internal expenses, launch and validation costs and salaries of the team. The $1.7 million (€1.5 million) round is associated with an additional $1.7 million (€1.5 million) of funding made available to us by our investors and third parties, ready to be invested in the first three startups born in the Firm”. The company presentation uploaded on CrowdFundMe also explains that the additional $1.7 million (€1.5 million)will be raised for the three investments in three startups born in the Firm. Each seed round will be about $1.13 million (€1 million), half of which will be covered by vehicles managed by StartupGym and priority will be given to those who have already invested in the Firm. Among the investors vying, both for the Firm’s capital and for investments in startups, is already Digital Magics.

Each year StartupGym the latter will validate about 20 MVPs (test products) with a team of 12 people. Each project will be set up to encourage an early-exit perspective, towards foreign competitors who want to expand in Europe. The divestments will generate cash, allowing for self-financing and, in part, dividends. All this with the aim of listing StartupGym on the stock exchange within 3 years.

Enrico Pandian, co-founder of StartupGym, commented on the round just concluded: “We are very happy with this first step, an important pre-seeded collection at a European valuation but with Italian investors. Now head down on the results, we want to create new businesses that are good for the environment, people and the community, we currently have 2 startups on the market and another 2 will start in January.”

Luca Rancilio added: “Enrico is an always active player in the Italian innovation space and we are very proud to be able to support him in this new startup, as we did with Supermercato24/Everli.”

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(Featured image by martaposemuckel via Pixabay)

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