After ploughing over EUR900,000 into six startups in Ireland in 2015 and 2016, Italian serial entrepreneur Gianni Matera is expected to grow his company’s seed investment value by 300% in the next five years, while taking his Irish investment tally up to EUR4 million by 2020.

Mainly focused on technology companies in Ireland looking at breaking into the United States, Gianni Matera’s company Growing Capital has backed companies like Caragon, a data logistics firm, Brim Brother, makers of power meters, GloFox, a fitness software product and Reflex Gaming. According to Matera he is applying a strategy that’s been used by companies like Trustev whereby the founders of the company are considering moving operations to the United States as the company grows. Growing Capital usually invests around EUR250,000 into companies that are eligible for funding by Enterprise Ireland, and this sum is typically matched by the organization. Matera started his Irish investment drive after he moved to Dublin in 2013.

About Gianni Matera

While serving as Lieutenant at Scula Militare Alpina, Gianni Matera completed his bachelor’s degree in Organizational Behaviour at Università Bocconi. He held business development roles in Italy and Turkey for several years before founding DigiTouch, the biggest independent digital advertising company in Italy. After selling 75% of his shares and exiting DigiTouch, which floated on the Italian Stock Exchange in an EUR44 million IPO in 2016, Matera founded DigitAlchemy in 2011. The company consists of a smaller team than DigitTouch and is located in Milan, Italy. In 2015 he founded Growing Capital and started actively funding Ireland based startups. According to Matera he is passionate about the vibrant Irish startup ecosystem, and enjoys the strong sense of community in Ireland when it comes to business. The entrepreneur made the decision to move to Dublin on sheer intuition but has since seen that his decision is making excellent business sense.