Berlin VC invests in Italian startup. Is this the start of something? | Hacker News Reader

Berlin VC invests in Italian startup. Is this the start of something?

eu.techcrunch.com

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... and we find out about it thanks to the british correspondent of a californian blog.

Care to contribute your euro-startup experiences here?: http://textchannels.com/EuroStartups

http://www.gruenderszene.de/news/point-nine-capital-cibando also http://www.deutsche-startups.de

See that's a problem, writing in English guarantees a wider audience.

naja, Quantität ist nicht gleich Qualität

I don't speak german

Surely you can read that though. Look again.

i know, but i was making a point

TC broke it first.

and "Pawel Chudzinski, Founder and managing partner of Point Nine Capital" is Polish

And a great guy!

http://www.magno.me/startup-e-italia-qualcosa-si-inizia-a-mu... Here you can find a quite critical point of view from one of the best italian entrepreneurs and business angel. Is written in italian for the italians who always criticize the italian venture capitalists, accusing them that they miss some good startups. But venture capitalists in this country are moving and growing, although there are still many gaps about seed capital. Also, the new Italian government has introduced measures to promote venture capital. By the way, You're hacker enough to translate this post!

If you're in Italy and want to fund your startup try contacting h-farm http://www.h-farmventures.com/

Disclaimer: I've worked with one of their startup but I know the place is great and they're more than willing to invest.

Thanks all! I really hope the Italian scene grows a lot!!

Besides the deserved congratulations, there's a question I'd like to ask you. I noticed that the Cibando website is Copyright "Cibando Ltd.", but in the TOS the service is from "Mobatar S.r.l."

Does this mean that you have both a UK ltd company and an Italian S.r.L.? If that's so, why? Have you already explored what it means from a fiscal point of view having both?

I ask because right now I'm very undecided if I should incorporate in the UK with a ltd company for the paid service I'll launch very soon on pro.hashtagify.me - not to dodge Italian taxes (I live in Rome too), but because a S.r.L. costs too much and sounds much worse for an international audience - and I only found very confusing information on the Internet, so it would be very interesting to learn about your experience :)

I had to face the decision too, for Iubenda, and ended up with an Srl. I went for the most hassle-free choice, since incorporating abroad can be time consuming and hide additional costs (loss of focus included). About the Srl, I wrote this article a while ago which can clarify some of the expenses: http://thinkamination.com/migliorare-srl-italiana/ [ITA]

Where did you get your data about incorporating abroad? From my information, the incorporation itself, if done in the UK, couldn't be less hassle-free and cheap: You get it in one day, and for less than 100€. The whole fiscal management should be doable for ca. 70€/month with a service like www.crunch.co.uk

What worries me is the Italian side of the thing: I'd like to pay what I have to pay in taxes (to the State, not to the notary) but it isn't very clear how you do that; as for pension contributions I have a day job that and am already covered there.

Simply put, right now I don't want to look for external money (THAT would be a loss of focus ;) and couldn't pay the costs of a SrL. I want to be sure if the business model works before committing thousands of euros to this startup.

Anyway, thanks a lot for the suggestions!

PS: do you know about http://srlfacile.org/ ? I like what they ask and I'm trying to help, but exactly today I was thinking about writing a more direct/polemic message referencing the "tasse occulte" our premier talked about recently. I'm sure that making much (MUCH) easier and less expensive to incorporate would be one of the few feasible measures that could bring about real economic growth. I would have incorporated at least a year ago with my other initiatives, hadn't it been for this...

Also consider that we are a tech/legal startup, and the ability to cover in house some of the legal trickiness was a huge pro on the Srl side. Here some other thoughts I forgot to link on the previous post: http://thinkamination.com/dove-incorporare/ [ITA] Here's a topic on Quora too: http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-benefits-of-being-incorpor...

Also consider that incorporating outside means you have to demonstrate that it's not for a taxation advantage, which would not be legal.

Well, of course having the legal counselling in house makes a difference, and the US is actually a more complicated alternative the the UK for us in the EU. So in your case I'm pretty sure that your choice was the best.

For me, your last point doesn't look very worrying, because from what I read if the company operations are in Italy then you are required to pay taxes here, but according to EU law you can rightfully incorporate in any EU country; so, if I do pay the taxes in Italy, there is nothing unlawful. Moreover, in my case, the website is (and will be) in English only and my market is 99% abroad.

More worrying is having to understand HOW I should pay my company's taxes here, and how to explain to the UK that I should't pay them there too... the worst scenario I can think of would be having to pay the corporate taxes twice until everything is clear, but if that becomes a problem it means that I already got traction, and at that point I could do everything I need to fix the situation.

What I really don't want is to spend a lot of money just to validate my product!

It's very common now for European startups to have a UK LTD as well for later exit purposes.

Wouldn't Ireland, Luxembourg or Cyprus be preferable?

Nice catch! We're planning to change it very soon. We were operating with Mobatar S.r.l. and are now in the process to close it down since we already transfereed all the assets to Cibando Ltd.

What we did now is have the HQ in UK and open a branch in Italy. It was the best solution if we wanted to easily raise new funds or exit.

I only noticed because right now that's a very sensitive matter for me ;)

So, you're opening a branch here - that makes a lot of sense, as you are actually making business in Italy (but it's very sad that's necessary for those reasons). May I ask you how much does it cost? Is it as expensive as opening an independent SrL?

It's much cheaper than the SRL. You still have to pay the Notary though.

Interesting that things are actually happening outside of SV.

Speaking of that, is there a startup scene in Scandinavia? Anyone know?

Er, cough, Spotify...?

+ Skype, Zendesk, Opera, Rovio, among others.

Yeah,because Estonia is Scandinavian country LOL

Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström are both Scandinavians.

Yes! There's even a whole site devoted to the startup scene in Nordic (and Baltic) countries: http://www.arcticstartup.com/

Cool! (heh)

I want to meet local entrepreneurs who are in tune with the HN ethos, but it's really hard sometimes in Jante country :)

In Finland, there's been quite a lot of happening lately: http://steveblank.com/2011/10/07/the-helsinki-spring/

HN, keep an eye on italian startup scene, a lot of potential waiting to be discovered...

agreed. I really wish the startup scene blossoms in Italy in the near future as there is great potential there - One of my favourite italian startups is http://stereomood.com/

How would you monetize that site?

You could try mood based ads. Very difficult to sell to an advertiser, but it could have some interesting applications. I wonder if depressed or happy people buy more.

Interesting approach! I generally think happy people would buy more...

I think the opposite, that sad people would buy more. Would be an interesting experiment :)

there could also be potential for B2B services: think airport lounges, auto salons, etc etc ...

Buy buttons on every track. Lots of music I've never heard about that I might like to download to my music player.

EDIT: There are buy buttons on every track, but frankly they're almost too inobtrusive - I didn't notice them at first.

Lot of potential but little money.

"Italian VC investors (I mean the ones based in Italy) are, in general, famously useless at identifying high growth businesses in their own country"

Sad but true.

The money is in hiring good hackers at good prices.

Finally !

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