Luca Ascani

Luca is founder and CEO of Lambda Alpha, an investment company focused on early stage investment. Its portfolio includes Bear, the Apple Design Award winner notes app, Fintechs as Lendable and Emma App in London, Mansa in Paris and ScalaPay as well as autonomous robots Gideon Brothers and automated pasta restaurant Cala. Recent investments includes Dishpatch, Airbank and RVVUP. Luca started his entrepreneurial career aged 20 when he launched BuyCentral.it, the first Italian shopping comparison site, in 2000. It was sold to Lycos in 2004. In 2002 he founded ADVance which became the leading digital agency in Italy, subsequently sold to NetBooster. In 2004 he cofounded GoAdv, later rebranded Populis, one of the largest vertical digital publishing groups in Europe and Brazil, listed on the Paris Alternext stock exchange. In 2011 Populis was named the fastest growing company in Ireland and part of the top ten in Europe by Deloitte. In 2012 and 2013 he has brought the TechCrunch conference to Italy with the aim of connecting the Italian industry with international investors. For this same purpose he was co-hosting the 2017 Founders Forum in Rome. From 2010 Luca was in the board of IlSecoloXIX, an Italian north west leading newspaper, then acquired by LaStampa in 2014 and he was in the board of the new group, ITEDI, until it was acquired by Gruppo Espresso in 2017.