The strong digital transformation that involved the financial sector in the last years gave birth to the FinTech industry, characterized by the exploitation of technology innovations for better production and delivery of financial services. This thesis aims to understand how FinTech startups are valuated, especially focusing on the Italian ecosystem, making a comparison between what the literature says about valuation methods for startups, and how startups are evaluated by practitioners in Italy. The path that brought us to the definition of the main findings of the entire work is the following: first, it has been developed a systematic literature review for understanding the valuation of startups from an academic perspective. Second, the attention was moved to the specific sector of interest, FinTech, to understand its main peculiarities and characteristics from several viewpoints. Third, a qualitative case study has been conducted, to understand from practitioners how they valuate FinTech startups that operate in Italy. Thanks to the results of the qualitative case study, it has been developed a framework, composed of five guidelines that are meant for giving a contribution and support to investors in valuating Italian FinTech startups. These guidelines are team composition, traction, internationalization, technology, and multiple of sales. Even though they are static guidelines, their implication and application are quite dynamic, because the relevance of each one can depend on the subjectivity of the investor, as well as on the main characteristics of the target company. The main findings of the thesis are related to the comparison between the literature and practitioners, on how startups’ valuations are performed. The most important conclusion is that for valuing a startup it is important to take into consideration several qualitative aspects, and team composition emerged as the fundamental one. This result is shared by the literature and the practitioners, meaning that there is an alignment between them that strengthens this conclusion highlighting the relevance and importance of qualitative aspects in valuing a FinTech startup.
La forte trasformazione digitale che ha coinvolto il settore finanziario negli ultimi anni ha dato vita al FinTech, un settore caratterizzato dallo sfruttamento delle innovazioni tecnologiche per una migliore produzione ed erogazione di servizi finanziari. L'obiettivo di questa tesi è quello di capire come vengono valutate le startup FinTech, concentrandosi soprattutto sull'ecosistema italiano, facendo un confronto tra quanto la letteratura dice sui metodi di valutazione delle startup, e come queste siano valutate dai professionisti in Italia. Il percorso che ci ha portato alla definizione dei principali risultati dell'intero lavoro è il seguente: in primo luogo è stata sviluppata una revisione sistematica della letteratura per comprenderne la valutazione delle startup. Successivamente, l'attenzione si è spostata sullo specifico settore di interesse, il FinTech, per coglierne le principali peculiarità e caratteristiche da diversi punti di vista. In seguito, è stato condotto un caso di studio qualitativo, al fine di capire dai professionisti come loro valutino le startup FinTech che operano in Italia. Grazie ai risultati del caso di studio, è stato sviluppato un framework, composto da cinque linee guida che intendono dare un contributo e supporto agli investitori nella valutazione delle startup FinTech italiane. Queste linee guida sono: composizione del team, traction, internazionalizzazione, tecnologia e multiple of sales. Anche se sono linee guida statiche, le loro implicazioni e applicazioni sono piuttosto dinamiche, perché la rilevanza di ciascuna può dipendere dalla soggettività dell'investitore, nonché dalle caratteristiche principali della startup oggetto di valutazione. I principali risultati della tesi sono legati al confronto tra letteratura e professionisti, su come vengano eseguite le valutazioni delle startup. La conclusione più importante è che per valutare una startup è importante prendere in considerazione diversi aspetti qualitativi, e soprattutto la composizione del team è emersa come fondamentale. Questo risultato è comune e allineato tra la letteratura e gli investitori professionisti, e rafforza l'importanza e il valore degli aspetti qualitativi in fase di valutazione di una startup FinTech.
Valuation methods for Italian FinTech startups
Palmieri, Federica;MAGRI, EMANUELE
2020/2021
Abstract
The strong digital transformation that involved the financial sector in the last years gave birth to the FinTech industry, characterized by the exploitation of technology innovations for better production and delivery of financial services. This thesis aims to understand how FinTech startups are valuated, especially focusing on the Italian ecosystem, making a comparison between what the literature says about valuation methods for startups, and how startups are evaluated by practitioners in Italy. The path that brought us to the definition of the main findings of the entire work is the following: first, it has been developed a systematic literature review for understanding the valuation of startups from an academic perspective. Second, the attention was moved to the specific sector of interest, FinTech, to understand its main peculiarities and characteristics from several viewpoints. Third, a qualitative case study has been conducted, to understand from practitioners how they valuate FinTech startups that operate in Italy. Thanks to the results of the qualitative case study, it has been developed a framework, composed of five guidelines that are meant for giving a contribution and support to investors in valuating Italian FinTech startups. These guidelines are team composition, traction, internationalization, technology, and multiple of sales. Even though they are static guidelines, their implication and application are quite dynamic, because the relevance of each one can depend on the subjectivity of the investor, as well as on the main characteristics of the target company. The main findings of the thesis are related to the comparison between the literature and practitioners, on how startups’ valuations are performed. The most important conclusion is that for valuing a startup it is important to take into consideration several qualitative aspects, and team composition emerged as the fundamental one. This result is shared by the literature and the practitioners, meaning that there is an alignment between them that strengthens this conclusion highlighting the relevance and importance of qualitative aspects in valuing a FinTech startup.| File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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2021_12_Magri_Palmieri.pdf
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https://hdl.handle.net/10589/183744