Domenico Crescenzo

🚀 Excited to back Leo Acciarri, Francesco Paolo Defendi, and Mattia Zarrelli - three founders combining strong engineering, platform building and software development skills - who are tackling the big workforce shift of our times: the rise of skilled blue collar workers. They are building Gyver, an enterprise workforce infrastructure company to shape the careers of 1 in 5 skilled blue collars in EU. As a first step, Gyver built an AI-powered recruitment platform, rethinking how millions of technicians and electricians find jobs by recreating trusted word-of-mouth recommendations on WhatsApp. Workers apply with one click, while employers finally gain access to talent that is otherwise out of reach. Why now? 📊 40%+ of European employers face skilled trade shortages, blocking progress in the energy transition and reindustrialization. ⚡ Gyver has already built Italy’s largest community of electricians (21,000+ strong), who now use WhatsApp to discover jobs, apply instantly, and stay engaged through conversational AI. 🏗️ Top employers in the electrical sector are already hiring through the platform (the likes of Enpal, Schneider Electric, ...) Really fast-moving, hands-on founding team solving a real-economy problem that truly matters. Thrilled to welcome you to the portfolio, team!

97

21 commenti

"The tragedy of Europe’s current trajectory lies not in any inherent inability to compete, but in the apparent lack of will to do so... ...European companies possess the financial resources, technical expertise, and market access necessary to become global leaders in battery technology. What appears to be missing is the strategic vision and long-term commitment required to build indigenous capacity rather than accepting dependency." This aptly - and sadly - describes the reality of much of Europe's approach to technology, innovation, and industrial policy in recent decades. Every time you think, "damn, this has gotta be the time that Europe snaps out of it and wakes up", it seemingly hits the snooze button again. “This raises a fundamental question that should alarm every European policymaker: Is it truly beyond the capabilities of Europe’s industrial titans to develop and manufacture their own battery technology?” 💯 There are a loooong list of fundamental questions that European policymakers can't answer...or worse, they confidently and arrogantly answer wrongly. "The CATL project in Spain serves as a stark reminder that while Europe debates and deliberates, China acts." 🎯 "Energy security, which Europe has painfully learned cannot be taken for granted, becomes inextricably linked to Chinese industrial capacity and political decisions." Europe doesn't seem willing or able to learn from its mistakes. https://lnkd.in/eVNizh6V

137

21 commenti

I've been thinking a lot about pricing models in this new age of AI and how it is *particularly complicated* for companies building software for the ⚡ energy transition ⚡ or 🦾 physical world 🦾. SaaS pricing used to be simple: charge per seat. Then AI came along...and broke the model. Now we’re all guessing between usage, agent, workflow, or outcome-based pricing. But easier said than done -  You can’t plug a usage-based pricing model into a 9-month procurement cycle. You can’t sell outcome-based pricing to a buyer who doesn’t know what their “baseline” is. So, it gets even more complicated if you're selling into utilities, energy, or industrial markets because of long budget cycles, rigid procurement needs, and often less sophisticated software orgs. I’m running a survey to benchmark how early-stage startups in our ecosystem price today - my guess is it looks and feels different than the other AI-native startups that have seen success in other industries like software engineering (e.g. Lovable, Cursor) or legal (e.g Harvey) or medicine (e.g. Abridge). SURVEY HERE: https://lnkd.in/gdYivTFZ It should take about 5 minutes and I'll share back anonymized, aggregated insights back to you if you fill it out - thanks for sharing your experience and feel free to share with other early stage startups.

117

11 commenti

FemWealth Issue 227 highlights 💌 In the Spotlight 💸 Co-founded and led by Bianca Cefalo, Space DOTS® helps space tech manufacturers and operators to detect, interpret, and attribute natural and human-originated threats in orbit. The London-based company announced a $1.5M Seed round led by Female Founders Fund. Startup News: - Co-founded by Haya Odeh, Replit, a San Francisco-based agentic software creation platform, secured $250M at a $3B valuation - Co-founded by Sylvie Menezo, SCINTIL Photonics, a France-based company that develops light-based components to enable AI chips to connect better and faster in data centres, raised a $58M Series B - Led by Dr Daniela Marino, CUTISS AG, a Swiss clinical-stage biotech developing personalised, scalable skin tissue therapy, raised €57.9M in Series C - Led by Kate Condliffe, Diana Health (We're Hiring!), a New York City-based network of women’s health practices, closed $55M in Series C  - Founded and led by Alyx van der Vorm, Clyx, a US social platform that helps users find community events to join, closed a $14M Series A - Co-founded by Ioana Hreninciuc, Runware, a San Francisco startup providing a unified platform that delivers the latest AI models, raised a $13M Seed round  - Co-founded by Marianne Tikkanen, Puro.earth, a Helsinki-based company that brings together suppliers of carbon net-negative technologies and companies seeking to reduce or offset their carbon footprints, raised $12.8M in Series B - Co-founded and led by Avencia Sanchez-Mejias PhD, IntegraTherapeutics, a Barcelona startup that develops next-gen gene writing tools, raised $12.6M - Founded and led by Michelle Lee, Medra , a San Francisco startup developing AI-powered robotics for labs, raised $11M in Pre-Seed and Seed - Co-founded and led by Michal Lupu, Blocks, an Israeli AI-native platform that lets organizations build intelligent work tools and AI agents through simple conversation, raised $10M in Seed  - Co-founded and led by Noel Pugh, Lōvu Health, a California-based digital maternal health platform, raised $8M in Series A - Co-founded and led by Doris Messina,Tot, an Italy-based business platform for administrative and financial management, raised €7M in Pre-Series A - Co-founded by Hanah-Marie Darley, Geordie AI, a London startup building security tools for enterprises adopting AI agents, raised a $6.5M Seed   - Co-founded by Dr Jackie Matthew, Fraiya Ultrasound, a UK startup providing AI-powered pregnancy ultrasound technology, raised £3.5M in Pre-Seed - Co-founded by Tara O'Driscoll, PhD, Dr. Sioned Fôn Jones, and Lydia Mapstone, PhD, BoobyBiome, a London company developing a device universally compatible with breast milk storage bottles that absorbs oxygen to maintain microbiome viability, raised £2.5M in Seed  - Co-founded by Tanja Danner and Professor Aasa Feragen, Prenaital, a Danish startup providing AI-powered prenatal screening tech, secured $1.57M Read more and subscribe [link in comments section]

57

5 commenti

Can this partnership give startups the ultimate boost? I am sharing with StartupValley Magazine how InnoSource Ventures AG and W Ventures David Warschawski and Sam Tomlinson decided to formalize their partnership after years of successful collaboration, creating a true bridge between the #US and #Europe. By combining networks, expertise, and resources, this alliance opens up new opportunities for visionary founders to scale faster, reach further, and drive meaningful global change. Thank you to Sabine Elsaesser for the interview. Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/dJqm8H_Q #Startups #Innovation #VentureCapital #VC #GlobalGrowth #Partnership

51

An excellent opinion piece from Kyriakos Pierrakakis in the Economist. " ... Let us, by all means, eliminate the invisible tariffs that fragment Europe’s internal market. But let us also ask ourselves: what kind of economy are we enabling once those barriers are gone? The answer cannot be “more of the same”. It must be an economy that innovates, competes and grows—with an institutional architecture designed not just to manage risks, but to catalyse Europe’s potential." https://lnkd.in/dzjFVHeN

30