Growth Engine
Piazza Armando Diaz, 5, Milan, Lombardia, 20123, Italy
Overview
Growth Engine is a holding company that invests in startups and scaleups with high growth potential founded by Fabio Mondini de Focatiis, Andrea Marangione, Michele Appendino and Marco Ariello, Venture Capital professionals with an excellent track record. Growth Engine invests in Italian startups at the Pre-Seed and Seed stage.
- Total investments
- 6
- Lead investments
- 0
- Investments · 12mo
- 1
- Active investors
- 0
Investment portfolio
- CiaoDott
Participated · Seed · Mar 2026
CiaoDott builds a vertical voice AI platform for the Italian medical sector that autonomously handles appointment bookings and frequent patient enquiries by phone. Founded in 2025, the company says its solution currently manages about 70% of calls and has secured collaborations and contracted revenues with clinics including Politerapico Monza, Benacus Lab, and Centro Medico Manara. CiaoDott targets inefficiencies in a market where the phone remains the primary channel for appointments and a sizeable share of calls go unanswered. The company plans to expand its platform to serve reservation needs in orthopaedics, dentistry, and dermatology and to invest in strategic marketing to grow its customer base. Its recent €1.5M Pre-Seed funding is intended to accelerate product development and commercial rollout across Italy.
- TimeFlow
Participated · Equity · Feb 2025
TimeFlow offers a proprietary platform that automates and optimises resource management and procurement processes in the IT supply chain, leveraging AI to search, qualify, and engage professional services suppliers. The solution accelerates matching between recruitment needs, available tech talent, and IT skills. Founded in 2020, the company operates from offices in Milan and Lecce and is active in five countries. In 2024 TimeFlow managed over €30 million in projects and served more than 1,500 companies. In the first nine months of 2024 the company generated over €1 million in revenue. TimeFlow plans to integrate new AI-powered functionalities and consolidate its presence in the UK, Germany, and France with a target of reaching €90 million in revenue by 2027.
- Cubbit
Participated · Equity · Jul 2024
Cubbit is a geo-distributed cloud storage enabler headquartered in Bologna, Italy, led by co-CEOs Alessandro Cillario and Stefano Onofri. Its software allows service providers and enterprises to deploy their own geo-distributed cloud storage networks in minutes according to their infrastructure strategy and internal policies. The platform is designed to let customers keep full sovereignty over data, simplify workflows and reduce costs. Cubbit's technology is adopted by 350+ European companies and partners, including HPE, Equinix and Leonardo, and is serviced by Exclusive Networks. The company intends to use the new funds to enable European service providers and companies to take back full independence and control over their data, infrastructures, and costs. Cubbit is a distributed cloud storage company that does not use centralized server farms, instead enabling decentralized data centers by connecting internet resources in homes and businesses. Its zero-knowledge technology provides privacy by design and its architecture reduces CO2 emissions by avoiding large server farms. The company was founded in 2016 by co-CEOs Stefano Onofri and Alessandro Cillario, CTO Marco Moschettini, and Lorenzo Posani, PhD. In 2020 Cubbit distributed products to its first 3,500 customers across more than 70 countries. Cubbit recently raised €7m, consisting of €3.5m in equity, €2.4m in convertible notes and €1.1m in debt. The company intends to use the proceeds to grow its B2C and B2B Sync&Share services, R&D Backup and Object Storage solutions, and to launch the Next Generation Cloud, a distributed cloud network for pioneer companies.
- Zefi.ai
Participated · Seed · May 2024
Founded in 2023 and based in Turin, Italy, Zefi.ai has developed a platform that automatically centralizes and analyzes all conversations with end customers. The AI-driven product helps companies identify growth opportunities and areas for cost reduction by providing deeper insights into customer behavior and preferences. The company works with international clients and collaborates with leading companies in the Tech and AI industries. Zefi.ai will use the funds to fuel technological development and accelerate commercialization efforts across Europe. The announcement provides no operating metrics such as revenue or user counts.
- ZeFi
Participated · Equity · May 2024
ZeFi is an Italian SaaS that offers an ML-powered behavioural analytics platform enabling businesses to analyse their interactions with users. The platform identifies growth opportunities and cost-reduction areas to help clients understand customers, reduce churn rates and increase loyalty. ZeFi works with international clients and participates in programs such as AWS Startup Loft and NVIDIA Inception. In 2023 the company was included in the Slush 100 Europe and was awarded Product of the Day on Product Hunt. The company raised €1.6M and will use the funds to fuel technological development and accelerate commercialisation in Europe. Founder and CEO Aurora Maggio said the capital will be used to attract top tech talent across Europe and deliver a high-quality product to customers.
Team
No current team members are available.