BizPlace & Peekaboo, a strategic alliance to support digital entrepreneurship

BizPlace & Peekaboo, a strategic alliance to support digital entrepreneurship

For years BizPlace has been offering consultancy for startup and SME fundraising , with the mission to support digital entrepreneurship from the definition of the financial strategy, to the drafting of the documentation, to the presentation of the project to the investors and to obtaining the capital.

Too often, however, our customers are only interested in being supported in the fundraising process, unaware that they are not ready to hold an interview with a serious investment fund !!!

No one puts money on ideas, however interesting they may seem. The funds finance projects, so they want to understand the business opportunity, touch the product and get to know the team that developed it.

For years on Rome and Milan there is a community that takes care of this. Peekaboo is the creator of the Lean Startup Program and the center from which more than 50 companies operating in the fields of robotics, 3D printing, virtual reality and much more are born.

Peekaboo’s value proposition is clear. In 10 weeks they help you validate the business idea, develop the product and introduce yourself to investment funds.

In this piece we interview Federico Belli, COO & Co-founder, to understand why the startups of the BizPlace portfolio do not know they need their support.

Hi Federico, in two words, who are you and what do you do?

Peekaboo is a community specializing in pre-acceleration services for startups Early Stage that operates in Rome and Milan to support digital companies to validate the business and develop a potentially attractive product for the market and for the venture capital industry.

What is the target that most needs your support? For what reason?

Since 2014 we have welcomed more than 1000 people. Graduates, researchers, technicians and business managers; however, the most receptive category is surely the one we call “Second time startupper”, that is people who have already tried and failed, and who realize that the first aspect to invest in when launching any business is the knowledge of the instruments, of the processes and work methodology. With them we can produce absolutely interesting results.

Speaking of results, what is the track record of the quality of your work?

Number of startups born during our pre-acceleration routes, capital raised for our companies, jobs created by us and our companies, multinationals that have purchased our format. These are just some of the indicators that attest to the validity of our product, without false modesty I am proud to say that I do not know any reality in Italy that has created so much value in just 5 years.

Is it therefore correct to claim that you represent a privileged channel to reach investment funds?

More than a privileged channel I would say a filter. Business Angels and investment funds view hundreds of projects every day, discarding a large amount. If they come to our Pitch Days it is because they know they will find multidisciplinary teams, working products and metrics that attest to the validity of the idea. If these features are missing, we do not allow the startup to access the meetings with the funds.

Why could our partnership be a winner?

I strongly believe in the work that companies like BizPlace do, and I am aware that the first thing that comes to the mind of an entrepreneur with a winning idea is to collect money to develop it. However, BizPlace must present quality products to its network of investors, so it can only take on a limited number of projects, setting aside those that do not meet the minimum requirements we mentioned earlier. That’s where we intervene. We are interested in all the projects that are not yet ready to raise funds but could become so in a short time. We offer them the opportunity to complete the team, learn the technological development of the business, increase their network, develop the product and reach the first customers.

Without this we propose to propose the same projects to BizPlace, and with them start the fundraising process with investment funds, aware of presenting a startup and not just an invalid idea.

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