In this interview, Diva Tommei, Chief Innovation & Investment Officer at 28Digital, outlines why Europe needs venture platforms rather than more standalone venture funds. She explains how 28Digital has built a full-stack innovation ecosystem that supports founders from education through international scaling — including Master’s programmes, researcher pre-venture support, startup incubation, open innovation with corporates, access-to-finance services, and soft-landing programmes for global expansion.
Tommei emphasises that today’s startups require far more than “smart capital”: they need regulatory guidance, market access, mentorship, and diversified funding strategies. This is why 28Digital is launching its own fund initiatives as part of a broader public–private venture platform model.
A significant theme of the conversation is Europe’s fragmentation. Tommei highlights the importance of the proposed “28th regime”, a unified regulatory and operational framework that would allow startups to scale across Europe as if it were a single market — simplifying taxation, certification, and data governance.
She also discusses how LPs increasingly value ecosystem-backed strategies that create defensibility, diversification, and long-term resilience. For Tommei, success by 2030 means Europe embracing a distinctly European innovation model — one grounded in public purpose and collaboration — and creating a landscape where founders scale as European startups, not as isolated national ventures.
he third edition of 0100 International — organized by Zero One Hundred Conferences in partnership with the Milan City Council’s Department of Economic Development and Milano&Partners — brought together the global private markets community for a high-signal, execution-focused gathering held from October 27–29.
François Candelon, Partner for Value Creation & Portfolio Monitoring at Seven2, shares how the firm aligns every investment around a clear “exit animal”—a vision of the company at exit—and uses disciplined execution, AI-driven transformation, and sustainability as levers for resilience and premium valuations. From reengineering core processes with AI to embedding decarbonization into business strategy, Candelon explains how Seven2 builds companies that are not just exit-ready, but future-proof.
Private markets are entering a new era where trust, compliance, and technology converge. While public markets enjoy automation and transparency, private assets still depend on paper-based, fragmented systems. Antonio Chiarello, CEO of Weltix, argues that the next leap forward is not just digitization, but the creation of digital infrastructures that redefine ownership. In this conversation, he discusses why friction is structural rather than technological, how regulation enables innovation, and how programmable liquidity and transparency can channel more private capital into real economic growth.
