CDP Venture Capital: what it is and how startups get funded

€4.9 billion across 15 funds: that is what CDP Venture Capital says it manages. Spend an hour on the list of funds and you may still have no idea which door a seed-stage founder should knock on.

Here’s what we cover: what CDP Venture Capital is, who owns it, what its funds are for, the three doors a startup can use and the ticket sizes the company publishes. We also cover what it doesn’t do, so you don’t lose weeks at the wrong door. Read it next to our guide to venture capital in Italy. And if you’re new to all of this, the beginner’s map from zero to a first round shows where this step sits.

What is CDP Venture Capital?

CDP Venture Capital SGR is a venture capital manager. In plain terms, it raises funds and puts the money into startups. SGR stands for società di gestione del risparmio, the Italian term for an asset manager. It appears in the register of alternative investment fund managers as number 59, and it has offices in Rome and Milan. The full official name ends with Fondo Nazionale Innovazione.

Ownership explains the mandate. The company’s press release of 8 November 2022 puts 70% in the hands of CDP Equity and 30% with Invitalia, the national development agency. That release is nearly four years old, so look at the company’s site in case something has changed.

The company says it invests through direct and indirect funds. Direct means the money goes straight into startups. Indirect is the other route, where it invests in funds run by other managers. Take Lumen II, which the homepage announces: a partnership with Ulixes SGR and Lumen Ventures to launch a seed-stage fund for insurtech, fintech, digital health and cybersecurity.

Which funds does CDP Venture Capital run?

The funds page sorts them by stage. Count them yourself and you get 16 vehicles, one of them a multi-compartment fund, although the homepage says 15. Don’t worry about the gap. New funds launch and names change, so this is the picture on 5 October 2026.

Stage, as grouped by CDP	Funds listed
Pre-seed and seed	Technology Transfer, Italia Venture I, Green Transition, Italia Space Venture
Early stage	Corporate Partners I, Internazionale, Acceleratori, Evoluzione, VenturItaly, Boost Innovation, Digital Transition, Artificial Intelligence
Late stage	Rilancio, Large Ventures, Italia Venture II
Cross-stage	Multicomparto VenturItaly II

Three of them matter most to a founder. Technology Transfer exists, CDP says, to encourage direct and indirect investment that speeds up the creation and growth of deep tech startups: if you’re building deep tech, start there. Acceleratori is the national accelerator network, covered below. Large Ventures is for companies already raising large rounds. CDP’s own page also lists the sectors it follows: deep tech, blockchain, new materials, space economy, life science, agritech, foodtech, mobility, fintech, social impact, robotics and sustainability.

How do startups get CDP Venture Capital money?

There’s no single application form. In practice you’ll find three doors, and your stage decides which one to use.

1. The accelerators. For pre-seed and seed, the Fondo Acceleratori backs 20 vertical accelerators launched since 2020, among them Food Seed, Cyber X, Terra Next and MotorValley Accelerator. You apply on the accelerator’s own website. About 20 candidates get through the first screening, and each batch ends up with 8 to 10 startups. In total the fund counts 435 startups managed.
2. The pitch platform. The homepage has an “Applica ora” button that leads to pitch.cdpventurecapital.it, where a startup can submit its project. Read what the platform asks for before you apply.
3. Other investors’ rounds. In bigger rounds, CDP money tends to arrive next to other investors. The 2022 release describes Large Ventures as a co-investment model, with co-investors in individual deals. Through its indirect funds, CDP Venture Capital can also sit behind the fund that backs you, without appearing on your cap table.

Seats are scarce, so apply when the deck, the numbers and the team are ready, and read each accelerator’s page to see its sector. Our guide to how to find investors for a startup covers the other routes.

What tickets does CDP Venture Capital write?

On the pages we read, only two programmes publish figures. Here they are.

Programme	Stage	Ticket
Fondo Acceleratori	Pre-seed	€70,000 to €200,000
Fondo Acceleratori	Follow-on seed	about €200,000 to €500,000
Fondo Acceleratori	Series A or B	about €1 million to €5 million
Large Ventures	Series B or C rounds above €20 million	minimum €10 million (2022 release)

The accelerator figures come from the fund’s own page. The Large Ventures floor comes from its launch release, so ask whether it has changed: the fund opened with a €150 million first closing, all from CDP Equity, and a €700 million target. For the other funds the website doesn’t give ticket sizes, and we won’t guess. Ask on the first call, and read how much equity to give away at pre-seed and seed before you hear the answer.

What doesn’t CDP Venture Capital do?

It doesn’t give grants or loans. CDP Venture Capital buys shares, through funds. Grants and soft loans sit with other schemes: see our guides to Smart&Start Italia and to grants for founders under 35.

It doesn’t replace private investors. The Large Ventures release talks of co-investors in individual deals, and at pre-seed the accelerators pick a handful of startups per batch. Treat CDP-backed money as one source among several, next to business angels in Italy and your own first €50,000 from friends and family. The whole picture is in how to raise capital for a startup in Italy.

If CDP Venture Capital isn’t the right door

Two other doors are worth knowing, one European and one private. The EU’s EIC Accelerator starts with a short application: a 12-page form, a pitch deck of up to ten slides in PDF and a video pitch of up to three minutes, with up to three team members. Feedback comes in about four to six weeks. Our EIC Accelerator guide explains the stages.

Google for Startups Accelerator has an EMEA edition. It calls its support “equity-free” for the length of the programme, which is three months, and it is aimed ideally at companies between seed and Series A. A CDP-backed accelerator is the opposite, because it invests. So find out whether a programme takes shares before you apply.

Your checklist before you apply

1. Say which stage you are at, and be honest about it. Pre-seed and seed means the accelerators; co-investment rounds come later.
2. Look through the funds page and the accelerator list for names in your sector, such as deep tech, fintech or agritech.
3. A €70,000 to €200,000 ticket buys a slice of your company. Work out how big a slice before anyone offers one.
4. Get the deck, the numbers and the cap table ready. Our guide to pitch deck structure helps.
5. Apply yourself, through the accelerator’s site or the pitch platform, not through a middleman.

This article is general information, not legal or tax advice. Programmes and terms change: check CDP Venture Capital’s pages and each accelerator’s call before you apply.