Francesca Natali is a shareholder and board member at META Group. From 2005 she is the Managing Director of META Ventures, the financial company of META Group, managing in Italy, Poland and Slovenia co-investment risk capital funds: the Ingenium funds.

Ingenium is a co-investment fund specialized in providing venture capital & business support to high growth companies in the early stages of their development. Ingenium funds fill the financing gap for seed and startup companies by mobilizing both public and private resources.

The Ingenium funds are an example of a public-private partnership involving business Angels clubs, Business Incubators and Accelerators in Italy as co-investors. Ingenium cooperates with few selected investors in order to:

• Make deal sharing
• Provide financial resources to selected deals mainly when the full funding among BAs club is not reached
• Join second round in companies already invested by a BAs club or other co-investor
• Offer portfolio companies best managerial support and clear governance rules

Co-investment funds attract more private investors

Several Ingenium funds are already completed and more under way in Catania, Sardinia, Slovenia, Poland and Umbria, and it has proven to be a successful formula for regional growth. Ingenium is an early-stage risk capital co-investment fund typically built around a Region of a few million inhabitants focused on Seed and Start-up but also considering expansion phase, companies with high value of intangibles, knowledge intensive companies with high growth potential, Regional coherence of sector of activity. The co-investment funds attract more private investors (Bas, VCs) and contributes to professionalization of the local community of business angels.

Since its inception Ms. Natali managed all the activities of META Ventures: fundraising among private investors over 25 million euro, actively engaging in deal flow generation, scouting, investment and divestment selection, administrative and control functions. As an Investment Director, she seats in the board of directors of MV portfolio companies.

“As a general partner of META Ventures, I have a track record in co-investing in the healthcare sector with Business Angels in Italy and Europe. I am Board Member and Observer of several companies specifically those with Business Angels co-investors such as Biogenera (Pediatric Oncology), Angiodroid (Medical device), Cellply (Diagnostic Platform) and Greenboone (bone regenerative implant),” Francesca explains.

Her role as board member in MV portfolio startups is a “very challenging experience,” she says. “I met a number of very committed and experience CEOs with a great ambition to bring the company to success. For early-stage companies the pain points are how do I raise money, how do I get customers, and how do I hire and retain the best people?  A good board member should be additive to the governance and to the chance the company will become successful. It is necessary to be very flexible and be ready to implement plan B, C or D, especially nowadays. I have to say that the board room is not a women-friendly environment and you have to show all your competencies and being very professional.”

Complicity is also important between founders and investors. “Investors and founders should share the same vision and must have the same expectations or, at least, they should be able, from the very beginning, to find a common way to align their own interests,” Natali says.

Connections with InvestHorizon & other achievements

Francesca is an Expert Coach to European deeptech and scale up companies taking part in the InvestHorizon progamme.

She also has a deep experience knowledge on key features and regulation of EU financial instruments, having worked for the European Commission and other important international donors (European Investment Bank).

She has been appointed into the Regional Investment Committee of Venture Capital Fund by Regione Basilica Basilicata. From 20015 she a member of Venture Capital Commission. at AIFI –Italian Association of Private Equity and Venture Capital. She is member of the screening committee of Women 4 Angels, the leading Italian female business angel club.