Chieffo (Bemycompany): “Why we invest in Israel”
On the way BMC 2 Tech Israel, the club deal to invest exclusively in Israeli tech startups. Based in Rome, the Club Deal was born from an idea by Antonio Quintino ChieffoCEO of ACFinance And bemycompanyAnd Antonio French, CEO of the Roman software house Media Engineering. In the team to support the founders there will be one dozen entrepreneursamong them Learned Mauroaccountant and engineer Andrea Bertli. Let’s take a closer look at where the Club Deal will invest.
How will BMC 2 Tech Israel invest?
A Club Deal is an investment syndicate between these very wealthy individuals or families (High Net Worth Individual or HNWI) who come together in groups to invest in companies while making a profit that increases their wealth and rewards the risk.
The BMC 2 Tech Israel Club Deal will invest in Israeli high-tech startups in the fields of digital, agritech, military, cybersecurity and pharmaceutical technology. The Club Deal has committed to investing progressively up 5 million euros at the bottom sixth millennium; 500,000 have been invested so far.
“The Club Deal serves as a bridgehead between Israeli innovation and our country. The aim is not speculative investments, but the creation of an innovation hub between Italy and Israel. There are realities here that deserve to be backed with serious investments, as we haven’t found any interesting startups to invest in in Italy,” explains Chieffo.
Who is the sixth millennium
Sixth Millennium is part of the venture capital network Sixth Millennium Venture Partners, founded by Jonathan Pacifici. The latter is a member of the Board of Directors of AC Finance, consolidating the collaboration that began in September 2019 with the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between Bemycompany and Sixth Millennium.
The latter is an early-stage venture capital investing in seed and Series A rounds.
Sixth Millennium is a venture capital fund that has been investing in cybersecurity, IoT, big data analytics and fintech for years, with an exclusive focus on companies in the Israeli market startup nation.
Israel: the startup nation
The technology centers are now located in China, the United States and Israel. Intel’s global R&D office is based in Jerusalem. Israeli tech companies raised more than $54 trillion between 2020 and 2022. The country is home to 85 unicorns (companies with valuations over $1 million), ranking second in the world after the United States.
“All major ICT companies source their proprietary technology from Israel. In Italy, 99% of innovative startups do not have a proprietary technology that can really break through in the market, but have limited themselves to bringing innovations to the market in terms of marketing and processes. In Italy, R&D is very expensive due to companies’ high labor costs and the lack of a mature venture capital ecosystem to fund it. That’s why we prefer to bring the technology directly to where it’s born,” says Chieffo.
The advantages of Israeli startups for Italian companies
Italian companies suffer from a large technological lag compared to the rest of the western world. “They invented new technologies 30 to 50 years ago and then stopped innovating. They can fill their technology gap by adopting technologies from other countries (e.g. emerging markets and China) or by investing locally, but we have few engineers. We need to import technology from Israel to close the gap faster. Research hasn’t been funded in Italy for some time, but a country that doesn’t innovate is doomed. We must take Venice as an example, which throughout history has built its wealth on what it imported. In this sense, a Club Deal can accelerate the technological growth of our companies. If we don’t do it, others will,” Chieffo warned.
