Italian startup funding in H1 2026 came in at €679M according to VeM and €813M according to Growth Capital — two official venture capital reports on the same six months, €134M apart, and both correct. Giacomo Mollo and Niccolò Sanarico break down why the two observatories count differently: VeM tracks institutional, tech-transfer-heavy activity in Italian-incorporated companies and classifies it in traditional private equity categories, while Growth Capital, co-authored with Italian Tech Alliance, uses modern vertical segmentation and includes large rounds and deals done outside Italy. Both agree on the figure neither headlined: first-time cheques fell from 110 to 95, so the money went up while the number of companies funded went down. The episode sets Italy against Europe's €44bn across 5,330 rounds and asks why a market this size still lands where it does. It covers the 59% pre-seed and seed skew, why Niccolò says Italy doesn't yet have a true barbell, and the business-angel tax incentive that expired at the start of the year. It looks at what actually absorbed the capital — Weroad, Smartness, Lexroom and Niulinx — and why the record half was carried by applied and vertical software rather than the deeptech and biomedical deals Italy has historically pushed. The conversation closes on two rounds: Circular Materials' €11.8M SAFE from CDP Venture Capital, the EIC Fund, EIT RawMaterials and 360 Capital, built on an End-of-Waste licence very few holders have, and ORiS' €5M pre-seed led by Earlybird, a German fund taking the lead position on a Politecnico di Torino spinout.Niccolò's newsletter: http://dealflowit.niccolosanarico.com/Watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@giacomomolloListen to all episodes on audio:Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3fVynsQGoogle Podcast: https://bit.ly/3thf9RCApple Podcast: https://apple.co/3ElhykqAmazon Music: https://shorturl.at/9Dtd9Get in touch:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/giacxxxTwitter: https://twitter.com/giacomomolloEmail: giacomo@in3.ventures#venturecapital #italy #startup

Proxima Fusion, nuclear fusion, stellarator technology, Italian founders and CDP Venture Capital anchor this episode on Europe's largest fusion round ever: €411M at a €2.4 billion valuation. The Max Planck Institute spin-out is headquartered in Munich, will likely build its first plant in Bavaria, and counts Google, RWE, KfW Capital, SPRIND and quant-finance investors among ~21 backers — with Italy's CDP re-upping as a returning investor. A €2.4B valuation for a company with zero revenue and a demonstrator by 2030 means fusion has been re-priced from science risk to execution risk. Italy is hedging the race across competing technologies: CDP backs Proxima's stellarator while Eni has been one of the largest investors in Commonwealth Fusion Systems' tokamak since 2018. Then Young Platform, the Italian crypto exchange, raises €22.5M in a growth round from Azimut — a bet on regulation rather than hype, with MiCAR authorization covering 8 of 10 crypto services, first in Italy by breadth, in a market that has clearly cooled off. Finally, Primo Capital launches Primo Space Fund 2 with a €120M target for space technology and dual-use applications, €70M+ in expressions of interest before first close and Roberto Battiston advising. The through-line: Italy didn't miss the fusion race — it paid to be on the sidelines.Niccolò's newsletter: http://dealflowit.niccolosanarico.com/Watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@giacomomolloListen to all episodes on audio:Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3fVynsQGoogle Podcast: https://bit.ly/3thf9RCApple Podcast: https://apple.co/3ElhykqAmazon Music: https://shorturl.at/9Dtd9Get in touch:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/giacxxxTwitter: https://twitter.com/giacomomolloEmail: giacomo@in3.ventures#venturecapital #italy #startup

Italian startup funding, venture capital, D-Orbit, Satispay, WeRoad, CDP and the dealflowit H1 2026 data anchor this episode on why Italy's ~€730M half-year is concentration, not depth. The top three rounds account for roughly 40% of the total and the top five for about 60%, so stripping out the breakouts leaves an ordinary half. The most active investor isn't a private VC — it's CDP, the state, with 91 investments — while business angels stay busy at pre-seed and the biggest checks at the top come increasingly from foreign players like Airbnb, which led WeRoad. We put €730M in context: it's roughly half Italy's ~€1.5–1.6B annual ceiling, and 2025 leaned on an exceptional ~€800M fourth quarter, so the back half of 2026 has a steep bar. We also note that only one top name, Lexroom, is AI-native, and that rising average round sizes (Series C near €46M) signal a maturing but still-shallow market. Then MDOTM: a $27M growth round from Expedition Growth Capital, with its Sphere platform already touching $100B+ in assets across 60+ institutions including Morgan Stanley, Amundi and Zurich Bank. Finally Alia Mentis, a 2012 advanced-composites maker, debuts on Euronext Growth Milan up 35% on day one, oversubscribed, on about €15M revenue and €8.5M EBITDA — a 58% margin — with a founder who kept 67% after a mostly bootstrapped path. The through-line: Italy didn't have a record half-year — three companies did.Niccolò's newsletter: http://dealflowit.niccolosanarico.com/Watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@giacomomolloListen to all episodes on audio:Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3fVynsQGoogle Podcast: https://bit.ly/3thf9RCApple Podcast: https://apple.co/3ElhykqAmazon Music: https://shorturl.at/9Dtd9Get in touch:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/giacxxxTwitter: https://twitter.com/giacomomolloEmail: giacomo@in3.ventures#venturecapital #italy #startup