Bridging the early-stage education gap
We could start with the classic story: “When we launched Venture Play in October, we didn’t know what to expect.”
But that wouldn’t be true.
From the very beginning, we knew Venture Play would attract aspiring and active angel investors and people willing to dedicate time and energy with a clear purpose: becoming more effective early-stage investors and contributing to a stronger Italian ecosystem.
We also knew we would attract the right kind of people: motivated, curious, and determined to improve. In just a few weeks, the Venture Play community had already expanded significantly.
But the interesting part isn’t the number of participants.
What truly matters is that, in Italy, angels can no longer rely on “romantic” investing - small bets hoping for occasional wins. Today, they need a venture-capital mindset: clear investment theses, focus on high-potential startups, and a structured approach to maximize portfolio returns.
In short, they need to invest like professional VCs, not just make ad-hoc bets.
The demand was clear: the market was waiting for Venture Play.
IAG delivered what had long been missing, bringing structure, real experience, and a pragmatic approach to a field too often driven by enthusiasm, storytelling, and gut feeling.
A real and urgent need
In recent years, Italy has seen a steady increase in the number of founders, startups, and the amount of capital flowing into the ecosystem.
What hasn’t grown at the same pace is the opportunity for angels to professionalize: to acquire the structured knowledge and tools needed to collaborate effectively with venture funds and help guide high-potential startups from the very first stages.
This gap is a (in)visible brake on the entire system.
We don’t need “more startups”, but better-prepared angel investors, capable of identifying and supporting the most promising founders early, and investing alongside the best venture funds.
Yes, the UK, France, and Germany have more capital, but that alone doesn’t explain why they are ahead of Italy.
What truly sets them apart is the presence of a strong base of business angels who provide structure to the market: shared criteria, higher evaluation standards, and clearer expectations for founders.
This collective discipline is what makes their ecosystems more solid and predictable.
If we want Italy to compete at that level, this is where we must start: with the quality of early-stage investing and the angels who drive it.
The solution: Venture Play
Venture Play was created to address this unmet need.
Not to offer another theoretical course, but to build a real, practice-driven learning path: one that transfers the way experienced investors think and builds a concrete link between angels and funds.
In Italy today, they often speak two different languages: angels don’t fully understand the logic of funds, and funds don’t know what to expect from angels, and startups end up navigating this misalignment. They face fragmented expectations, inconsistent feedback, and unclear signals on what “good” looks like (despite operating in the same market as both investors).
It is essential that they learn to speak the same language: to understand how funds operate, the criteria guiding their decisions, and how they evaluate opportunities. Only then can angels truly collaborate, participate in co-investments, and contribute to a more fluid, fast, and competitive ecosystem.
It is the most effective way to give the ecosystem what it really needs: more aware angels, faster at reading signals, better prepared to engage with founders and funds, able to raise the overall standard of Italian early-stage investing.
The winning formula
Venture Play works for two reasons.
1. The quality of the lecturers
At the core of Venture Play are partners from the leading Italian and international VC Funds.
They don’t just explain how venture capital works: they show how they actually think and operate.
This is crucial for angels who want to co-invest with funds: today, most investments happen alongside VC funds, so angels need to understand how funds evaluate deals, structure decisions, and manage portfolios in order to invest effectively alongside them.
This practical insight gives angels a shared language with funds, making co-investments smoother and contributing to a stronger, more fluid ecosystem.
2. The IAG perspective
The second reason Venture Play works is IAG itself.
The real power lies in capitalizing on this knowledge and translating it for angels and the broader ecosystem. This happens through structured debriefs, where complex VC logic, investment decisions, and lessons from actual deals are broken down and made actionable for angel investors.
Participants don’t just see what experienced investors do. They understand why they do it, and how to apply that thinking themselves.
The real value
This is the real value: not a collection of knowledge, but a shift in mindset.
And it is good news not only for angels, but for founders, funds, and everyone building innovation every day.
Because without better angels, we won’t have better startups. And without better startups, there won’t be a stronger ecosystem.
Now it’s clear to you too: the need exists, and IAG has the tools to fill it.
Venture Play is just the beginning. We are ready to make even more noise.