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Join Founders Factory to Shape the Future of Employee-Owned Businesses in Italy and Beyond
Overview
Salary
No salary declared 😔
Location
Milan
Nomad Friendly?
Expires
Expires at anytime
Founders Factory is a renowned startup builder, offering founders capital, operational expertise, and access to corporate partners. With over 300 startups launched since 2015 and $800mm in follow-on funding, Founders Factory is tackling the challenge of generational transitions in European SMEs through its innovative platform, Equis. Equis is designed to facilitate the succession of businesses to new, employee-owned structures, preserving jobs and ensuring continuity.
Role Summary:
- Collaborate with a successful CEO and co-founders to launch and scale a new venture.
- Take charge of building and leading a high-caliber team from the ground up.
- Oversee all financial aspects, including fundraising, strategic planning, M&A processes, and investor relations.
- Design financial services for the portfolio companies.
Role Requirements:
- Proven experience in raising capital and/or M&A, preferably with at least 4 deals per year.
- Senior finance expertise, ideally as a CFO or in a senior investment banking position.
- Success in team building within rapidly growing businesses.
- Leadership experience in startups or early-stage companies.
- Flexibility, analytical skills, entrepreneurial spirit, and innovation-driven mindset.
- Excellent communication in Italian and English and a strong reputation in financial communities.
What’s in it for you:
- Address a critical issue and contribute to a meaningful mission.
- Learn from an experienced international team with previous successful ventures.
- Direct impact on all business aspects, from fundraising to product development.
- Remote-first, flexible culture with a focus on outputs.
- Competitive compensation package, including salary and significant founder’s equity.
Founders Factory builds and funds startups together with exceptional entrepreneurs and the world’s leading companies. Created by IPO-exited founders, we offer founders capital, operational support from a team of hands-on experts, and unrivalled access to a coalition of industry-leading corporate partners. Since 2015, our 300+ portfolio companies have raised $800mm follow-on funding from a roster of notable investors.
European micro and small enterprises are facing an existential crisis. As the overall age of the European population increases, succession planning has become an immense struggle. In Italy alone, about 30% of SMEs are led by entrepreneurs that are 70 years or older and only 1 in 5 generational transitions succeeds, placing more than 500k of Italian SMEs and 2M jobs at risk in the next 10 years.
The Impact of Equis
We’re building a “bridge” to help these companies transition from one generation to the other, creating the next generation of employee-owned businesses, with an added technological layer of financial services.
How it works: Our tech-enabled employee ownership platform acquires small businesses whose owners are about to retire and matches them with new managers.
The company over time (10y+ horizon) retires its shares in favour of employees, all while generating cash and creating a new generation of employee-owned businesses that take over from owners previously without exit opportunities.
The project is backed by Founders Factory and a leading Italian investment bank.
About the Role
We’re looking for a founding team member who will work alongside the other co-founder(s) to help launch and scale the venture, starting in Italy.
Key responsibilities:
Report to and work closely with the CEO, a serial entrepreneur and exited founder with 13y+ expertise in the tech space; Support with building and leading an A-class team from scratch Leadership of every aspect of the company’s finances across multiple functions including: Raising finance; Strategic planning; Building the finance organisation from the ground up; Building and operating scalable M&A processes, incl. DD process and negotiating with small business owners; Monitoring the overall health of the portfolio of target companies; Designing financial services for the portfolio companies; Financing of operations;Investor relations; Accounting systems.You should definitely have:
Experience in raising early stage and growth capital (with connections to VC and PE funds, AMCs, FOs, HNWIs) and/or M&A (at least 4 deals/year and small cap preferred) Senior finance expertise: you’ve been a CFO or equivalent in a successful fintech company, with multinational operations and VC backed if possible and/or mid to senior position in a leading investment banking firm; Success in building teams and infrastructure in a rapidly expanding business; Experience in a leadership role in a startup or early stage company or a background operating in an entrepreneurial environment - ideally you’ve been involved in key decision making and strategic direction; Flexible, analytical, entrepreneurial and innovation-driven mindset; Outstanding communication skills in both Italian and English; Excellent reputation in the financial community.What’s in it for you:
Solve a real pressing problem and contribute to an important mission; Build with and learn from an international team who have done this before The opportunity to directly impact all aspects of the business from fundraising to product development; Remote-first and flexible culture, we believe in outputs not clocking in time; Exceptional compensation package, including: Salary aligned with early stage best practice in the space; Significant founder’s equity; as it’s an entrepreneurial project, the compensation will be unbalanced positively in this direction; Access to the global reach and network of Founders Factory.We are prioritising candidates in Milan, IT, but remain open to other locations (ideally London, UK). This role will require a significant portion of time to be spent in Italy.
