Open Innovation & PropTech. Startup Bakery presents its second startup, Condeo Edison among the reference investors
Investor and startup confidence in PropTech rises significantly: Europe’s oldest energy company draws on open innovation to build, together with the Italian startup studio, a cloud solution to digitise the property management sector and ease communication between managers, residents and service providers.
Among the first investors are Edison, Startup Bakery through its Lab and the business angel Fabio Croci. At the helm of the startup, as co-founder & CEO, will be Giorgio Argentieri, formerly Client Director and Digital Marketing Director at Triboo. The round is still open to third-party investors.
Condeo is aimed at property managers, residents and suppliers interested in simplifying the communication and coordination of condominium life, payment collection and the carrying out of ordinary and extraordinary works.
Milan, 3 March 2022: Italian PropTech bets on open innovation and invests in Condeo, the second startup spun up by the Italian startup studio Startup Bakery.
Joining the company are Edison, Europe’s oldest energy company and among the leading energy companies in Italy and Europe, and Startup Bakery itself, the Startup Studio specialised in B2B SaaS using Artificial Intelligence (through the Lab, its investment vehicle), alongside the business angel Fabio Croci (currently BTO at SEC Newgate).
“The direct investment of an industrial partner in a startup as early as the very first seed phase is an extremely rare case, and for us at Startup Bakery it is an extraordinary result: having investors of this calibre on board is a sign that the startup studio model is beginning to earn trust in Italy too, commented Alessandro Arrigo, CEO of Startup Bakery, Usually, even according to our standard model, partners arrive a little later, at a more advanced stage, when the solution is already on the market with a prototype or at least an MVP. In this case, instead, on the strength of our market research on emerging trends and of the evidence brought by industry surveys, we involved the partners from the validation phase onwards, gathering their interest in a solution of this kind and shaping its profile together so that it would meet the specific needs of real users”.
An important agreement that sends a signal of trust towards collaboration between corporates and startups in this sector too, and that intends to pave the way for the whole Property Technology market. The round is in fact still open to third-party investors.
“In a rapidly evolving context such as today’s, it is fundamental to identify the most innovative startups in order to explore, effectively and quickly, new solutions of value for the business and to put the best technologies in the service of energy, environmental sustainability and customers”, declares Lorenzo Mottura, director of Edison’s Strategy, Corporate Development & Innovation Division. “Through operations like this one, Edison aims to support the birth of startups with high innovative and growth potential, operating in businesses that are strategic for the Group”.
A solution that proves even more necessary in the current period, which brings no few changes: according to the Global PropTech Confidence Index 2020, 94% of investors believe the pandemic will further accelerate the adoption of PropTech in the real estate sector, an increase of 5% compared to mid-2020. The investor confidence index rose to 9.2/10, up from the previous ceiling of 8.8 in mid-2019 and fuelled in part by the exceptional performance of PropTech companies in public markets in the second half of 2020.
Spun up inside Startup Bakery, Condeo will be a cloud solution for managing condominium life: aimed at property managers, residents and suppliers, it intends to digitise and thereby simplify the communication and coordination of condominium life, payment collection and the carrying out of ordinary and extraordinary works, as well as to record the main events of condominium life, thus fostering transparency in management too.
At its helm, as co-founder & CEO, will be Giorgio Argentieri, formerly Client Director and Digital Marketing Director at Triboo. With a decade of professional and managerial experience in significant national and multinational contexts in digital marketing functions, Argentieri began his career as a digital marketing specialist within various international media networks, later moving to the role of digital performance manager and to managing digital advertising strategies.
“Condeo’s goal is bringing innovation and digital solutions to a sector that is still very ‘analogue’ and full of complexity, such as property management, concluded Giorgio Argentieri, CEO of Condeo, Thanks to the collaboration with a market-leading industrial energy partner such as Edison, and to Startup Bakery’s entrepreneurial and technological expertise, Condeo has everything it needs to become the ideal solution for managing, working and living in a condominium without stress”.
Startup Bakery
Startup Bakery is the Italian startup studio founded by Alessandro Arrigo and Angelo Cavallini in February 2020 with the goal of bringing to life sustainable B2B SaaS companies with a strong Artificial Intelligence component, and of allowing founders, companies and professional investors to express their potential.
The Studio guarantees the serial application of tools, skills and methodologies already present in the team, and stands beside the co-founder through every phase, from the raise to the exit, making them progressively more independent. Thanks to a proprietary algorithm, it can count on advanced capabilities for collecting and processing market data in order to identify niches of interest to occupy, while the cyclical validation of the initiatives launched is guaranteed by the application of the lean method.
The user-centred Interaction Design approach guaranteed by the know-how of Donux, the UX/UI company spun up by Startup Bakery itself, finally delivers simple, effective user experiences.
Startup Bakery offers industrial partners a new way of doing open innovation, entering the capital of the new startups and progressively accompanying them in their development up to acquiring them.
The SB “Labs”, the group’s operating companies, have the task of financially supporting the initiatives spun up in the pre-seed and seed phases (in co-investment), as well as building their core team (HR).
At the end of November 2020 Startup Bakery closed a capital increase of €750,000. In April 2021 it opened the €700,000 capital raise for its first startup, Veterly, and in October of the same year it brought it to market. In January 2022 it completed the €1,950,000 capital raise thanks to its first Lab. In March 2022 it presented its second spun-up startup, Condeo.
