The Platform Paradigm: Why Italy's Next Advantage Isn't Capital
People in VC Platform are the missing link between the Investment Team, the Startups, and the ecosystem. Their end goal is to make these interactions as smooth and effective as possible, to yield the most possible value in the process. So, what do Platform People actually do daily? To give an annoying consultancy answer: it depends. In VC, Platform encompasses everything that happens post-investment: the systems, people, and programs that help founders grow faster and more effectively. It’s about joining the dots between capital and capability. Each and every fund has its own history, targets, strengths, and needs, and it is essential for us to understand and adapt to those. This role can mean introducing founders to experts in your network and commercial leads, helping them hire key talent or refine their strategy, organizing community events for founders and investors, or even developing storytelling and partnerships to support them.
In the US, for instance, the concept of Platform VC has become mainstream. Andreessen Horowitz pioneered the model more than a decade ago, followed by firms like First Round Capital, Sequoia, Craft Ventures and Left Lane, all of which have built full Platform teams focused on supporting founders. In Europe, the movement is gaining ground. Funds such as Cavalry (now NAP), B2Ventures, Speedinvest, and 10x Founders have embraced Platform as a strategic function, blending data, brand, and community into a single growth engine.
For us at IAG, indeed, the idea of the Platform was imported as a good practice. During our annual Innovation Trip of 2024, to Berlin, we got in touch with this idea: someone in the team who dedicates all of their time to taking care of all types of post-investment needs. We quickly realized that if the best in the game were doing it, it was probably worthy of attention. Platform puts value creation back where it should be, at the core of VC activity and a priority for everyone involved. It is a mindset shift that sees value creation as a collective effort, not an individual transaction.
We realized a lot of our potential was still unleveraged. Being a network of angel investors and not a fund, we rely on a higher involvement of our investors than what we could expect from GPs. With about 300 active angels, hundreds of alumni and founders, and over 50,000 secondary connections, the potential value locked inside our network is immense. It seemed almost paradoxical that our key asset - people and their knowledge - was not being employed in the most effective way. And now, we’re building that bridge.
And Italy? We’re just getting started. Part of the reason is structural: smaller fund sizes mean smaller management fees, and therefore limited resources to build non-investment teams. But the deeper reason is probably cultural. Our ecosystem has long celebrated dealmakers more than builders: the value of a VC firm was often measured in how many investments it made, not how deeply it helped those companies grow. That mindset is changing, slowly but surely. The best founders today expect more than capital: it is a commodity, while the rest is not. They expect partnership, transparency, and access to networks that accelerate growth. Platform is how we scale that. Over the next decade, the most successful venture firms won’t simply be those that find the best startups. They’ll be the ones that build the best systems around them, the ones that invest not just in companies, but in the ecosystem and infrastructure of growth itself.
We are still learning, and still figuring out how this role evolves every day. Yet, it’s inspiring to imagine the potential in what Platform VC can become as the Italian ecosystem grows. Because at its core, it’s about connection. About creating synergies: between people, between disciplines, between ideas. And that’s what venture capital has always been about, really. Investing not only in capital, but in people.