Loris Lanzellotti and Alberto Emprin are two engineers who approached the world of venture capital and founded Excellis, in Turin. Excellis is a holding company set up to invest in foreign startups whose founders and co-founders are Italian researchers working in the most prestigious European and American universities. The founders aim to transform patents and skills into entrepreneurial projects.
Alberto Emprin, after working as business developer in Italy, USA and France for automotive and automation sectors companies, in 2010 has been involved in innovation commercialisation and technology transfer. At the same time, he started investing in the startup world by becoming a member of the Club degli Investitori. Since 2015, he has carried out more than 20 seed-stage deals with 3LB Seed Capital, the family holding company created for this purpose, including D-Orbit D-Orbit (which will be listed on Nasdaq this year) and Everli, the European leader in home shopping delivery.
Loris Lanzellotti has been involved in venture capital for more than 12 years, when he returned from the US after his MBA, which led him to work for Accenture and Cisco Systems. In Italy he worked as investment manager for dPixels and how to co-founder and CEO of Boost Heroes, concluding more than 110 investments in Italian - including Casavo, MiaCar and Satispay - and European startups.
This new experience stems from the need to respond to a widespread trend of which the two founders have had first-hand experience: the brain drain. Excellis was born from the idea of allowing talents that have migrated abroad to maintain a link with our country, making their work an opportunity for Italian investors. The aim, therefore, is to invest in foreign startups with Italian roots, operating in sectors with a high growth rate expected in the next 10 years, such as robotics, industry 4.0, the green economy, healthcare, artificial intelligence, quantum computing or the science of new materials.
Lanzellotti and Emprin have already defined an initial investment timetable for the newly established holding company: 18 months to invest in 15 projects, 36 months to reach the first exits, with the repayment of the contributed capital as soon as possible and the valorisation of the entire portfolio of subsidiaries by 2030. The holding company, which sparked success and interest during its presentation at an AIFO - the Italian Family Officers Association event, will shortly announce the first finalized investments and has already opened the door to a capital increase of €5 mln.
Loris Lanzellotti commented: "Italian researchers are consistently at the top of the European rankings in terms of awards and academic recognition received. Excellis invests in startups with strong scientific and managerial skills , and where the solidity of the proposed technologies is demonstrated by having obtained non-dilutive funding in the past, as well as by having a solid basis of patent protection and having already met with concrete market interest".
Alberto Emprin added: "The strict entry criteria for our selection, which are further tied to the presence of an Italian researcher with a specific background as founder and of a lead-investor of high calibre, while making us highly selective from the outset, also allow us more time to get to know, interact with and evaluate each individual entrepreneur, an essential factor in the final choice of a deal. We are looking for partners who share our philosophy and investment objectives in companies that are destined to develop in a global market but who are also interested in getting to know, interacting with and perhaps in the future actually helping these extraordinary entrepreneurs to develop part of their business in Italy".
