SICI Fund invests in 4 High Tech Companies

Venture Capital firm Sviluppo Imprese Centro Italia (SICI) announced that it has invested into 4 Tuscan companies,

Through Fondo Toscana Innovazione, a publicly-backed regional-based investment vehicle focused on financing the development of innovative high tech SMEs, SICI took:
– a 45% stake in Digitart, with a €800.000 investment. Founded in 2002, Digitart SpA is a leader in domotics applied to housing, luxury yachts and surgery rooms. Digitart, which cooperates with Pisa’s National Reseach Council (CNR), has closed partnerships with famous architects such as Giugiaro, Norman Forster, Philippe Starck and Luca Dini.

– a 55% stake in Toscana Biomarkers, with a €760.000 investment. Founded in 2007, Toscana Biomarkers has been the first selected and hosted company in Siena-based Bio incubator Fondazione Toscana Life Sciences. It is a R&D company focused on discovering and validating new diagnostic and prognostic tests for autoimmune illnesses.
– a 54% stake in ProtEra, with an investment of €3m. ProtEra, a spin out from University of Florence, was founded in 2003 to research and develop new pharmaceutical targets and innovative methods to define new candidates. The company is headquartered in Florence.
– a 20% stake in Siena Solar Nanotech, with an investment of €1,18m. Siena Solar Nanotech (2SN), a spin-off of the research company Organic Spintronics (OS), was founded in 2007 do develop a new thin film deposition technology for the production of flexible solar cells.
Fondo Toscana Innovazione is a €44m venture capital fund launched and managed by SICI. Its institutional investors are Tuscany Region (€17,7m), all regional banking foundations (€23,7m), Fidi Toscana (€1,5m), and the Tuscan system of chambers of commerce (€300,000).
The capital SICI invested into the fund amount approximately at €1,2m.
FinSMEs
05/11/2009

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