Quadrivio Group launches ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE PE FUND. Microsoft is technology partner for the initiative.

The new private equity vehicle will invest in SMEs operating in the B2B sector, to increase their value and competitiveness by quickening processes and developing solutions linked to the artificial intelligence realm. Fund-raising target: €300 million.

Quadrivio Group ‒ operating in the private equity market for over 25 years now and currently promoting and managing four thematic funds (Lifestyle Fund, Lifestyle Fund II, Silver Economy Fund and Industry 4.0 Fund), announces the launch of its ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE PE FUND. This new vehicle will invest in SMEs active in the B2B segment, pinpointing the sectors presenting the greatest transformation impact potential and speeding up their growth process.

The technology partner in the initiative is Microsoft ‒ world leader in the AI field, thanks also to the agreement reached in 2023 with OpenAi, parent company to Chat GPT. This teaming up will enable a synergic pairing between a more traditional private equity approach and a crucial technological accelerator, in the form of generative AI. Microsoft will be placing its experience at the service of Quadrivio Group, assisting it and its portfolio companies during the constant process of technological and cultural transition. Adopting AI in fact not only means acquiring technologies but above all implies the full involvement of the company executives, for a gradual change in enterprise business model and the management's mindset ‒ factors Quadrivio Group considers vital and necessary for its companies' international competitiveness.

The ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE PE FUND mission will be to encourage strategic investments and majority stakes in small- and medium-sized enterprises leading on their own markets and with evident potential for internationalization. Entities active in the manufacturing, cyber security, data analytics and software & IT sectors. The investment strategy aims to generate additional value in the enterprises by applying and integrating AI solutions, to support 'buy & build' plans, as well as to encourage the expansion and international consolidation of the companies.

It is today estimated that, in Italy alone, incorporating AI within the business models of small- and medium-sized enterprises could increase their value by €122 billion over the next 15 years. Besides bringing a considerable improvement in efficiency and productivity as well as cost optimization, AI offers essential leverage in competitiveness. For those players who will know how to reap its benefits, AI will make the difference through significant product margin growth, which is forecast to reach 20% in some sectors, with export capacity rising by up to 14%.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE PE FUND has a fund-raising target of €300 million, and will invest 70% of this capital in Italy, with the remaining 30% in the USA and Europe. In order to do so, it will bring into action a highly specialized investment team helmed by Fabio Boschi, Managing Partner for the fund. Its strategy choices will also be made with the support of a highly qualified Senior Advisory Board, made up of: Roberto Crapelli, Managing Partner and Senior Advisor at Quadrivio Group; Francesco Profumo, President of Isybank and President of Quadrivio Group Italy; Vincenzo Esposito, CEO of Microsoft Italy; an expert in advanced manufacturing leading a technology company; a businessman heading a prominent enterprise in the cyber and industrial field.

Alessandro Binello, Group CEO of Quadrivio Group, commented on the launch of the new apparatus: “The new fund will focus on investing in SMEs to transform them, thanks to AI, into small multinationals with a pronounced technological edge. We'll be investing in enterprises operating in four important macro-sectors: manufacturing, cyber security, data analytics, and software & IT. We will foster the strategic and operational use of artificial intelligence within the acquired companies, confident that this will secure significant competitive advantages and noticeable acceleration in creating value”.

For Walter Ricciotti, CEO of Quadrivio Group, “Today, artificial intelligence is the key technology for improving enterprises' efficiency and competitiveness. As private equity operators, our challenge resides first and foremost in understanding how to effectively and steadily include AI within the business processes of the companies we invest in. Artificial Intelligence PE Fund has been created precisely for this purpose: to help our portfolio companies in orientation during their digital transition and to assist them in selecting and adopting AI applications, to fully draw on AI's huge potential to brief timescales."

For Fabio Boschi, Managing Partner at Artificial Intelligence PE Fund: “Artificial intelligence is not an asteroid that once it has landed will reshape everything. It is instead new lifeblood that is revitalizing business models in many companies. In all the sectors where a large quantity of data is necessary to define efficient and effective pathways ‒ and particularly where what are referred to as WINS (Words, Images, Numbers, Sounds) make up the core ‒ AI is seeing in a new era, and one that will be dominated by the SMEs able to understand it and accompany it to evolve their own core business with it.”