Introducing Catalisi
What do all successful startups have in common? A great team and a big vision, but after many years of investing and building companies on my own, I learned on my skin that successful founders don’t do that on their own.
In mature startup ecosystems, established communities help Founders achieve their biggest goals and surround them. A big part of these communities is the people that have already done what the founder is going to do. These people have built successful companies or worked in the early stages, they scaled companies and already know what works and what does not. Their desire is to share their experiences and know-how with anyone who’s starting out their same journey. I call them Operator Angels. Indeed, it’s communities like Le fonds, Operator Exchange, and 10x group, that makes the ecosystem flourish. In contrast to most institutional investors, they had first-hand experience sharing and investing with their own cash. These operator angels play a key role in defining the success of pre-seed Startups in Silicon Valley for example but they are less common in other tech hubs such as Italy.
Who are we?
Today, we’re announcing Catalisi. Catalisi is the Italian name for “Catalyst”. We’re a community of operators and founders that invest in Startups worldwide, mostly in pre-seed and seed. It was started by me, Giuseppe Joe Balzano, and supported by the amazing team at StartupGym. In the last years, we’ve individually invested in companies like Shop Circle, Vinted, Papa, Young Platform, and others that are doing an amazing job. By grouping together, we will share our deal flow and reduce the risk because of the expertise of each Angel. Everyone in the club helps with a deep knowledge of specific industries and mostly with how to build a startup. While most of us are Italian, we’ve also built companies in other international cities and many of us live abroad.
Ultimately, our desire is to become the investor we would go for funding our own company.
In Search of Category-Shaping solutions
Category-shaping companies increase the likelihood of a homerun or unicorn outcome. The boldest are usually the ones who achieve to disrupt markets and set new trends. As a result, we seek to invest in disruptive models as well as the application of current technology and solutions to new or less obvious markets. We like blue-ocean markets, and competitive spaces as well. We do both B2B and B2C, we are confident with software and technology and each of our investments to date provides a first or near-first solution and helps to define a new market.
Empowering founders
We’ve helped entrepreneurs throughout the years by sharing our knowledge. We supported them in scaling teams, raising capital, designing products, selling to clients, and much more. This allows us to sharpen our abilities while also giving back. When we are unable to assist, we connect them with qualified individuals and experts in our network who can. We make every effort to invest in the most founder-friendly manner possible. That implies we’ll make a decision in less than two weeks or so, no later. We typically invest up to €200,000 for each startup.
Nowadays, more than ever — It’s a great time to start a company.
