FISCOZEN begins the next stage of its journey
April 16th, 2024
Today, we’re celebrating a significant milestone for our portfolio company, Fiscozen. In a strategic move, Fiscozen announced a significant investment from Visma, a leading European provider of software with over €2 billion in annual revenue.
Ever since our initial investment in 2020, Fiscozen has been revolutionizing the tax advisory landscape in Italy with its disruptive SaaS platform. This platform has been a game-changer for sole traders, a customer group consisting of nearly 3.7 million self-employed people in Italy, and the tax advisors who provide services to them.
The partnership with Visma marks an exciting new chapter in Fiscozen’s growth story. We are incredibly proud of what Enrico Mattiazzi, Vito Lomele, and the entire Fiscozen team have achieved so far. As they embark on the next stage of their journey, we wish them all the best and are excited to see how they progress.
Though this partnership marks the end of United Ventures’ direct involvement with Fiscozen, we are confident in the company’s bright future and its continued support of Italian entrepreneurs with digital tax services. Onwards and upwards for Fiscozen!
Bringing peace of mind in the tax realm
Investing in Fiscozen was a decision that perfectly aligns with our investment philosophy, which is centered around identifying and supporting entrepreneurial initiatives that digitize sectors that have yet to experience significant technological innovation. In partnering with Fiscozen, we saw an opportunity to construct a smarter, more flexible approach to managing tax complexities—through a fully digital tax management platform poised to revolutionize how freelancers and individual businesses approach their tax obligations.
Born in Milan at the end of 2017 from the vision of Enrico Mattiazzi and with the support of Vito Lomele, Fiscozen specifically addresses the needs of the “Partite IVA,” or self-employed workers, who represent a significant portion of the Italian labor market. There are nearly 3.7 million self-employed individuals in Italy—a diverse group that includes registered professionals, shop owners, artisans, and digital nomads—who form a substantial customer base for Fiscozen.
These self-employed individuals are often confronted with a myriad of tax obligations, such as electronic invoicing and various tax returns, which can be frequent and complex. Even accountants, who continuously invest in their training and strive to stay current, find themselves bogged down in administrative tasks, which can distract from their primary role of advising clients.
Fiscozen was established to address these challenges, with the goal of simplifying the complexities of tax management. By achieving this, Fiscozen provides ease and tranquility to solopreneurs, enabling them to concentrate on their professional aspirations without the worry of tax-related bureaucracy. This ambition has translated into a tenfold productivity increase compared to traditional tax advisory services. Also, Fiscozen clients benefit from the fastest tax assistance in the market, with an average chat response time of under five minutes.
An investor turned entrepreneur
Little-known tidbit: Enrico Mattiazzi, Fiscozen’s founder, was once part of the team here at United Ventures. In 2017, he transitioned from his role as an investment manager to chase his entrepreneurial aspirations, and what a journey it has been since. With a character that blends an engineer’s meticulous attention to detail with the passion of a visionary, Enrico has worked incredibly hard, and, year after year, has built and scaled Fiscozen with a methodical yet enthusiastic approach.
Under his leadership, Fiscozen has blossomed not only in its business results but also in its organizational ethos. Enrico himself has been a driving force in cultivating a culture that places people at its heart. It’s this philosophy, embraced by Enrico and the entire Fiscozen team, that has propelled the company to be recognized as one of the startups with the best company culture in Italy and an exceptionally high level of employee satisfaction.
This commitment to the well-being and development of his team members resonates deeply with our own philosophy. It validates our conviction that an organization’s true strength lies in its people. Today, Fiscozen is celebrated not just for its disruptive tax advisory platform but also as a nurturing ground for talent and innovation, setting a benchmark in the startup community for a culture that truly values its human capital.
Vito Lomele is the other piece of the equation. A seasoned serial entrepreneur whose previous ventures we had backed, Vito took on a mentoring role for Enrico as he helped develop his vision. Vito later played an instrumental part in establishing and scaling Fiscozen, lending his entrepreneurial wisdom and experience gained from successfully founding and growing multiple companies.
Together, Enrico and Vito have navigated through numerous key moments that have been instrumental to the company’s growth. One defining milestone was the Series B round led by Keen Venture Partners in December 2022, which set the stage for further expansion and innovation.
Today’s strategic investment by Visma not only marks the beginning of the next exciting phase in Fiscozen’s journey, but also signifies Visma’s entry into the Italian market—a significant step following their expansion into other European countries such as Spain, Germany, Portugal, and France over the past three years. Visma’s investment in Fiscozen is a testament to the company’s potential and a recognition of its role in transforming the Italian tax advisory landscape. With this, Fiscozen gains access to Visma’s extensive industry expertise and robust financial backing, which is poised to amplify its efforts and scale its operations even further.
A case study and a catalyst
For United Ventures, this marks a successful exit from our investment in Fiscozen, allowing us to return capital to our investors with a more than gratifying multiple. But this success story goes even further in bolstering the entire Italian innovation ecosystem. The investment into a homegrown Italian startup by an international software giant like Visma is a clear indicator of the maturation process underway within Italy’s startup landscape. It showcases growing confidence from global players in the Italian market, who recognize the caliber of innovation and the potential for growth within our borders.
Each successful investment serves as a case study and a catalyst, likely to spur more interest and capital inflow into Italy’s tech sector. It introduces best practices, fosters competition, and raises the bar for what can be achieved. As the ecosystem attracts more attention and resources, we can expect a virtuous cycle of innovation, investment, and growth, further cementing Italy’s position on the map of global technology hotspots. This is just the beginning—the more milestones we celebrate like this, the more we can anticipate in the future.
Congratulations to the Fiscozen team, and thank you for letting us be part of your journey!
Read the press release for all the details
