P101 (Italy)

ContactLab’s impressive list of customers includes many of the most well-known brands in a variety of sectors from fashion to travel, computing to coffee, and banking to charity organisations. Massimo Fubini, founder, is proud of his achievement in building up an internationally competitive company from scratch, which today employs around 150 people and has offices in Milan, Paris, London, Madrid and Munich. The beginnings of Contactlab date back to the 1990s, when Massimo was a university student. Being already familiar with IT technologies from a previous work experience, he grasped the opportunity that arose with the advent of digital’s rapid expansion into marketing communications.

“I understood that it was something new, something I really liked, so I started my own web agency”, recalls Massimo about the first steps of his stellar career as an entrepreneur.

As market trends were calling for more personalised digital marketing strategies, Contactlab was created in 1998 to offer web-based solutions for newsletter monitoring and other communication and contact strategies to enhance costumer engagement. While competition is fierce in the digital marketing services sector, ContactLab promises solutions that not only generate business results for the client but are attentive to enhancing the user experience at the recipient’s end. The investment by the EIF-backed venture capital fund, P101, played a significant role in Contactlab’s growth. Beyond providing capital, P101 has been acting as a mentor: it helped to develop a strong corporate governance structure, formalising the management of human capital, financials and internal processes. Following P101's advice, experienced Board members were appointed to help Massimo gain significant insights and a broader vision of the market. A key outcome is ContactLab’s recent orientation towards businesses in the fashion and luxury goods segment that was quick to embrace such innovative approaches. “Becoming involved with ContactLab was an opportunity for us to stand side-by-side with a wonderful Italian organisation which offers unique technology and skills on the market” says Andrea Di Camillo, managing partner of P101.

Company: Contact Lab (Italy)
Type of business: Technology, digital marketing and direct customer engagement
EU-supported investment through P101 fund

For further information about EIF intermediaries in Italy, please refer to:
http://www.eif.org/what_we_do/where/it