iff

While funding for Italian startups has been growing, the country still ranks eighth in Europe by VC investment, according to Dealroom. Newly created Italian Founders Fund (IFF) hopes to help with the catching up, both in quantity and in quality. It will use this geographical flexibility to also back Italian founders operating abroad, as well as foreign startups interested in entering the Italian market. It will also help that some of its LPs are GPs of foreign funds, and that it plans to back Italian founders with global ambitions. Global Italian startups include Bending Spoons, the owner of popular apps and services like Evernote and Meetup, which is valued at $2.55 billion.