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Product Manager turned into founder with experience in Financial Technology building…
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Simone Martinelli shared thisEuropean founders have built $1.8T of unicorn value outside Europe. That is an extraordinary signal of European talent, ambition and technical depth. But it is also a reminder of the opportunity Europe still leaves on the table: too many of its highest-potential companies scale, list and create their largest ecosystems elsewhere. The task is not to stop founders from thinking globally. It is to make Europe a place where global companies can be built, financed and regulated at scale. For fintech, that means a genuinely integrated market: clearer cross-border regulation, better access to growth capital and infrastructure that lets companies serve the world from Europe. Europe does not lack founders. It needs to compound more of the value they create. Dealroom’s European Diaspora Index in the comments. #EuropeanTech #Startups #VentureCapital #Fintech #Innovation
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Simone Martinelli posted this🇪🇺 PSD3 is coming. Here’s what fintechs need to know. PSD2 opened the door to Open Banking. PSD3 + the new Payment Services Regulation (PSR) are designed to make it work better at scale. 🔓 Fewer Open Banking obstacles Stronger rules preventing banks from creating unnecessary friction for PISPs and AISPs. ⚡ Better API access Higher expectations around access, performance and reliability of Open Banking interfaces. 🏦 Better access for non-bank PSPs Stronger protections for regulated payment institutions seeking access to bank accounts. 🛡️ More focus on fraud New requirements around fraud prevention, information sharing, Verification of Payee and liability. 📱 More consumer control Users will have greater visibility over which third parties have access to their payment accounts. 🌍 More harmonisation A significant part of the framework moves into the directly applicable PSR, reducing differences between EU markets. ⏱️ What about timing? ✅ Nov 2025: European Parliament and Council reached political agreement ✅ 2026: final legislative work and formal adoption process ➡️ PSD3: member states will then need to transpose the Directive into national law ➡️ PSR: will become directly applicable following its implementation period The important point is that this isn't an overnight change. But the direction is clear: Europe is moving towards a more reliable, interoperable and competitive account-to-account payments ecosystem. PSD2 created Open Banking. 🚀 PSD3 could help turn it into real payments infrastructure. At Volume, that's a future we're very excited about.
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Simone Martinelli shared this🚀 One statistic really stood out to me. By 2033, global retail cross-border payment flows are expected to reach $67.3 trillion, up from $44 trillion today. 📊 What's even more interesting is that while remittances get most of the attention, Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) flows account for just ~$2.1T today. The vast majority of cross-border money movement comes from businesses paying businesses, businesses paying consumers, consumers paying businesses, and global commerce. 💡 This reinforces a conviction we've developed at Volume: Remittance is the entry point, not the destination. The infrastructure needed to move money internationally is converging. Whether the payer is a consumer, a marketplace, a digital wallet, a bank or an enterprise, the underlying challenges remain the same: ✅ Collect funds 💱 Convert currencies 🏦 Manage liquidity 🛣️ Route payments efficiently 🌍 Disburse globally 🛡️ Stay compliant The companies that build this infrastructure won't just power remittances. They'll power the next generation of global money movement. 🌐 Cross-border payments are becoming one of the largest infrastructure opportunities in financial services. Curious to hear how others see the market evolving over the next decade. #Fintech #Payments #CrossBorder #Infrastructure #OpenBanking #Stablecoins #Remittance
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Simone Martinelli reposted thisSimone Martinelli reposted thisFor years, the conversation in payments was: 👉 “How do we build faster rails?” Now it’s changed to: 👉 “How do we connect and orchestrate across them?” With real-time systems live in many markets, the next phase of money movement is about interoperability. Here’s what’s driving it: 🌐 Linking domestic real-time networks across borders ⚙️ Multi-rail orchestration (choosing the best route per transaction) 🔗 APIs enabling seamless connectivity across systems 🧩 Collaboration across banks, fintechs, and platforms What does this mean in practice? Payments are becoming: Route-aware → optimized in real time Data-rich → enabling smarter decisions Flexible → delivered via the best available rail Key shift: 👉 The winner isn’t the fastest rail 👉 It’s the player who can orchestrate all of them Because in a multi-network world: Choice + connectivity = competitive advantage #MastercardMove #MoneyMovement #B2BPayments #PaymentInfrastructure #CrossBorderPayments #DigitalEconomy
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Simone Martinelli shared thisScaling is hard. Hyper-scaling with compounding effect is exhilarating 🚀📈 The first $1B takes years of building: 🏗️ infrastructure 🌍 markets 🤝 customers ⚙️ operations Then the curve changes. It’s about building infrastructure that can handle 10x the volume ⚡ That’s the shift from scaling to hyper-scaling with compounding effect 🔥 #Fintech #Payments #Scaling #Hypergrowth
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Simone Martinelli posted this🌍 Every remittance company is effectively rebuilding the same global payments infrastructure. To move money from A to B, they need to solve the same problems: 💳 Collections across multiple markets and payment methods 💱 FX and treasury across multiple currencies ⚡ Disbursement through different local rails 🛡️ Compliance, reconciliation and liquidity across the entire flow And then the next remittance company builds it all over again 🔁 in repeat. We found this insane.
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Simone Martinelli shared thisGreat report from FXC Intelligence highlighting the incredible quality of today's remittance leaders 🏆 The industry has come a long way, and the best is yet to come 🎯 Real-time account-to-account payments are replacing debit cards and manual bank transfers at checkout. Stablecoins are reshaping the underlying infrastructure by reducing the need for pre-funding and working capital. AI is accelerating the development of apps and enabling better customer experiences at unprecedented speed. More competition. Better products. Competitive FX. Stronger trust. Most importantly, these innovations are helping the industry move closer to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of reducing the global average cost of sending remittances to below 3% by 2030, making cross-border money movement more affordable for millions of families worldwide 🦄 It feels like we're entering the next chapter of cross-border money movement. #Remittance #CrossBorderPayments #Fintech #Payments
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Simone Martinelli shared thisStablecoins and real-time A2A have crossed the chasm 🏆 The next wave of payment leaders won't be horizontal platforms. They will own the financial layer of a specific vertical 🎯 The data is already there: ↕️ Vertical payments hit $130B in 2025, growing 18-22% annually 🛏️ B2B embedded payments could surpass $16T by 2030 Cross-border is where the opportunity gets bigger and the complexity multiplies. Multiple jurisdictions, KYC, AML, sanctions, multi-currency settlement. Horizontal platforms weren't built for this. PayPal Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners data in the comments.Simone Martinelli shared thisStablecoins and real-time account to account payments crossed the chasm. Incumbent horizontal payment platforms often struggle to keep pace with the needs of the long tail. Built for a previous generation of payment rails, many find it difficult to adapt their technology, compliance frameworks, and operational models quickly enough to support new market requirements. 📊 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 • Embedded payments are growing at a 23% CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) and are projected to exceed $2.5T in global transaction value by 2028. • Vertical payments reached $130B in 2025, with annual growth between 18–22%. • B2B embedded payments could surpass $16T in transaction volume by 2030. 🏆 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗹𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 The most successful vertical platforms don't just facilitate payments, they own the financial layer. 🚀 𝗖𝗿𝗼𝘀𝘀-𝗯𝗼𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗴𝗲𝘁𝘀 𝗯𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗼 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘅𝗶𝘁𝘆. 🌍 Multiple jurisdictions 🛂 Different KYC requirements 🔎 Real-time AML monitoring 🚫 Sanctions screening 💱 Multi-currency settlement Just as vertical software companies disrupted horizontal providers by addressing the unique needs of specific industries, the next wave of payment leaders will be those that seamlessly integrate compliance, payments, and operations into a unified platform tailored to their market. Find out more about Volume:https://www.getvolume.com/ #EmbeddedFinance #VerticalSaaS #Payments #GlobalPayments #FinTech #PaymentInfrastructure #AML #Compliance #B2BPayments #EmbeddedPayments #Volume
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Simone Martinelli shared this#money2020 had been clear about one thing. Stablecoins are eating the correspondent banking rails. Instant. Cheap. Borderless. The old infrastructure doesn’t have an answer. A new one is coming.
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Congratulations! 🎉
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Simone Martinelli reacted on thisSimone Martinelli reacted on thisMinus 1 week to Wave by Vento (aka Italian Tech Week) 2026! 🚀 💡 With AI increasingly reshaping how capital gets allocated, is the future of venture a better quantitative, data-driven model, a sharper gut instinct, or some uneasy marriage of the two? I’m therefore very excited to moderate a panel on “Algorithm vs Instinct” alongside Dinika (Cherry Ventures), Tom (QuantumLight) and Pietro (Connect Ventures). Where do you stand, algorithm, instinct? And what would you ask the panel? Curious to hear your take 👇
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Simone Martinelli reacted on thisSimone Martinelli reacted on thisVenture capital on LinkedIn is crazy. I met a 20-year-old founder who just raised $100M. Naturally, I asked how he got started. He said he just built a landing page with Claude Code. No product, no users but a cool .ai domain. He started cold DMing VCs on LinkedIn with his deck. No traction, but it had great vibes. He added “AI-powered” in the subtitle just in case. Used Nano Banana to mock up the product screenshots. Within a week, he had 4 term sheets. All oversubscribed, of course. No board seats, no liquidation preference. But he was vibing. Now he’s scaling to $1B in ARR - still no product. He says fundraising is easy if you “manifest it.” None of this happened btw. Reminder to take not everything on LinkedIn seriously.
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Simone Martinelli reacted on thisSimone Martinelli reacted on thisGreat teams don't happen by accident; they're built by people who go above and beyond every single day. Today we're delighted to announce the promotion of two of them 🎉👏 Congratulations to Min Nolan, who steps up as Partner, and Abby Hughes, our new Head of Operations. From championing founders to keeping the whole engine running, you both shape how firstminute operates, grows and shows up every day. Hugely deserved - we're very lucky to have you both 🔥
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Simone Martinelli reacted on thisSimone Martinelli reacted on thisPer The Techshop SGR: Primo closing a 43 milioni di euro del suo nuovo fondo seed per B2B AI Techshop II è interamente dedicato a startup pre-seed e seed che sviluppano soluzioni B2B basate sull'intelligenza artificiale, con un target di raccolta complessivo di 100 milioni di euro entro il 2027. Con questa operazione, la SGR fondata da Aurelio Mezzotero e Gianluca D'Agostino si evolve in una piattaforma multi-fondo. La strategia di Techshop II è chiara: investire in startup italiane ed europee che stanno guidando la trasformazione AI-driven nel software B2B, automatizzando attività e processi in settori chiave come healthcare, finanza, e sviluppo software. Il lancio si fonda sul brillante track record del primo fondo, Techshop I, che vanta 23 società in portafoglio e performance tra le migliori in Europa (MOIC 1,8, TVPI 1,5) a soli quattro anni dal lancio. Per guidare la nuova fase, Giovanni Strocchi entra come Partner, affiancando i fondatori e rafforzando l'approccio operativo "Founders-to-Founders" che contraddistingue Techshop. CDP Venture Capital SGR si conferma cornerstone investor, partecipando attraverso i fondi FoF VenturItaly II e il Fondo Digital Transition. "Con Techshop II vogliamo diventare il fondo seed di riferimento per le startup europee che applicano l’AI ai processi B2B", dichiarano i tre Partner di Techshop. "La nuova generazione di software non si limita a digitalizzare attività esistenti, ma potrebbe automatizzare interi processi aziendali". Per Cristina Bini, Direttrice Investimenti Indiretti di CDP Venture Capital: "Techshop ha dimostrato negli anni coerenza nella strategia di investimento [...] Queste capacità sono essenziali per concretizzare il nostro impegno a favore dello sviluppo dell’ecosistema dell’innovazione italiano ed europeo". I primi investimenti di Techshop II saranno annunciati nelle prossime settimane.
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Simone Martinelli reacted on thisSimone Martinelli reacted on thisMy wife and I now have our Instinct agents sort out the family admin between them, which has been genuinely great. Today I tried using it for something a bit more heartfelt. The agent did its job. My wife did hers.
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Simone Martinelli liked thisSimone Martinelli liked this🚨🚨🚨 I am delighted to share the news of our 6th profitable exit within the last 18 months as HubSpot (arguably one of the greatest SaaS companies of all time) completes its acquisition of Trigify.io an incredible company we backed via our Pre-Seed, Seed and Institutional Funds. The all-cash transaction delivers up to 3.52x for our investors, and I want to personally thank Max Mitcham, Hugo Millington-Drake and the entire Trigify team for allowing Haatch to back you and be on the journey with you 🙏 Over 200 Haatch investors had exposure to Trigify, and I know they are all over the moon at such a fantastic result after just a couple of years. 6 profitable exits in 18 months and there is more to come... watch this space 👀
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Simone Martinelli reacted on thisSimone Martinelli reacted on thisBREAKING: Connect Ventures has launched its 5th fund - a new $80m vehicle to back European founders at the earliest stage! Today the company has announced its first close of its fifth fund. It has already secured $55 million. The firm will lead pre-seed rounds across Europe, with cheque sizes ranging from $500k–$5m, investing at the intersection of AI, hardware and real-world automation. The firm has invested in over 120 companies to date, leading the earliest rounds in great companies including Aikido Security, a European leader in AI Cybersecurity; and TrueLayer, the leading Pay By Bank network. The fund is anchored by British Business Bank, with participation from returning LPs including Aldea Ventures, Sella Venture Partners and Molten Ventures. VERY EXCITING Congrats Pietro Bezza, Sitar Teli, and Rory Stirling 👏 Interested in European tech? Sign up to my newsletter to make sure you don't miss anything: https://lnkd.in/eH5_y5aq
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Simone Martinelli liked thisGlobal expansion requires far more than technical integration. It demands deep alignment with local cultures and regulations. At Euronet, we combine scale with local expertise to give cross-border brands absolute certainty as they grow.Simone Martinelli liked thisEntering a new market means understanding far more than how payments are accepted. It means adapting to local buying behaviors, preferred payment methods and the regulatory framework shaping each market. Euronet brings together international scale, in-market know-how and trusted technology to help businesses enter and operate across borders with greater certainty. Its electronic payment solutions are used by leading brands in more than 200 countries and territories, supporting reliable growth across multiple markets. Explore more: https://lnkd.in/dt-QpBc #Euronet #EuronetMerchantServices #GlobalPayments #CrossBorderPayments #PaymentInfrastructure #PaymentTechnology #InternationalBusiness #BusinessExpansion
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Simone Martinelli reacted on thisSimone Martinelli reacted on thisI’m proud to share Vocalink’s new partnership with the National Preparedness Commission, bringing our unique payments expertise into the UK’s wider resilience and preparedness conversation. National resilience cannot be built in silos. The systems the country relies on are increasingly connected, and the way we prepare for disruption needs to be connected too. Through this partnership, we will bring Vocalink’s specialist operational experience into cross-sector preparedness discussions, sharing what we continue to learn from operating and innovating across always-on payment systems — and helping to make the UK stronger against fast-moving threats that can spread rapidly across sectors and borders. It’s a theme also reflected in the new resilience report from BAE Systems Digital Intelligence, produced in collaboration with Vocalink and Mastercard: in an always-on economy, payments resilience can no longer be measured by how quickly systems recover, but by whether they keep working through disruption. I look forward to working with the Commission, its Chair Lord Toby Harris and its partners. More on the partnership: https://lnkd.in/eezuJF_J Read the full resilience report: https://lnkd.in/e5NC7QGG #NationalResilience #Preparedness #CriticalInfrastructure #Payments David Stewart Richard Rolls Brooke DiNatale Martin Etheridge Steven Harper Justin Adams Vicky Mitchell Jeff Brooker Sir Jonathan Thompson Sheryl Lawrence FCA MBA LLM BSc Jim Colvine James Howl ACA CertT Laurence Krieger Natalja Donovan Simon Forbes National Preparedness Commission Toby Harris BAE Systems Digital Intelligence
Experience & Education
Volunteer Experience
Publications
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The challenge of implementing an Open Innovation model for ideas evaluation: the case of Electrolux
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Open Innovation (OI) is a paradigm that assumes that firms can and should use external ideas as well as internal ideas, and internal and external paths to market, as the firms look to advance their technology (Chesbrough, 2006). After Chesbrough’s book in 2003, the term ‘Open Innovation’ is one of the most discussed topics on innovation and management literature. Most scholars and managers, while holding diverse perspectives, would agree that OI is an opportunity to improve company’s innovation…
Open Innovation (OI) is a paradigm that assumes that firms can and should use external ideas as well as internal ideas, and internal and external paths to market, as the firms look to advance their technology (Chesbrough, 2006). After Chesbrough’s book in 2003, the term ‘Open Innovation’ is one of the most discussed topics on innovation and management literature. Most scholars and managers, while holding diverse perspectives, would agree that OI is an opportunity to improve company’s innovation capability by the successful commercialization of ideas (Mortara, Napp et al., 2009). Nevertheless, the evil is often in the details and even a perfect planning could not be able to meet corporate expectations, while implementing OI models. As a matter of fact, using OI model to evaluate ideas poses many new challenges to firms when adopted and it is the internal organizational challenges that are perceived as most difficult to manage (Mortara, Letizia, 2009). Through the Electrolux case study we would provide evidence of how open innovation can be successfully implemented.
Honors & Awards
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Hackathon @Startupbootcamp
MasterCard
MasterCard Hackhathon - Best Technical solution using Simplify APIs
Languages
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Italian
Native or bilingual proficiency
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English
Native or bilingual proficiency
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