Stefano Ferace
Truffle Capital
As leader of Work Package One, Truffle Capital coordinated, with the support of all the partners, the FINE Network in developing, updating, and expanding the European investor and ecosystem mapping, one of the project’s flagship deliverables. This initiative strengthened the mission of the FINE project to create a more efficient, transparent, and collaborative investment landscape across Europe. The mapping provided a comprehensive, data-driven picture of the continent’s fintech and innovation ecosystems, identifying active investors, their focus sectors, investment stages, and geographical presence. By connecting startups, SMEs, and financiers, it supported the European Union’s long-term objectives of sustainable, innovative-driven growth.
From the outset, Truffle Capital built a shared methodological framework that enabled all consortium partners to contribute comparable, high-quality data. The investor map includes over twenty quantitative indicators describing each investor’s typology, investment stage, sectoral specialization, and location. The ecosystem map complements it by cataloguing policies, regulations, and events shaping fintech across the target countries. Together, they form a dynamic knowledge base for entrepreneurs, investors, and policymakers to navigate Europe’s fast-changing financial innovation environment.
By mid-2024, the FINE consortium had achieved the ambitious goal of identifying and mapping more than 200 investors active in the fintech space, with Truffle Capital leading the effort. Over 15 investor categories were captured, ranging from venture capital and corporate venture funds to angel networks, private equity, and family offices. Most of these investors, focus on early-stage and Series A funding, highlighting the project’s success in addressing the financing needs of emerging ventures. France alone accounted for more than fifty investors, while the Central and Eastern European region (Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary) contributed forty-seven. In parallel, partners aggregated over 250 ecosystem trends, policies, and regulations, offering an unprecedented view of how national frameworks support fintech development.
Throughout 2024 and 2025, Truffle Capital actively promoted the mapping results through numerous events and dissemination activities. The outcomes were showcased at the Unchain Festival, where the FINE project hosted a panel and pitching session connecting Eastern European startups with international investors, perfectly embodying FINE’s cross-border mission. They were also presented at the FINE Final Event and during several online meetings and workshops, which gathered partners, investors, and institutional stakeholders from across Europe. These presentations stimulated interest and engagement, fostering collaboration with external players eager to contribute to future updates of the tool.
The December 2024 update consolidated the mapping with 213 investors, up from 207 in the previous version. Spain and the Netherlands emerged as particularly dynamic ecosystems, with 25 investors each. Beyond growth in numbers, this phase introduced major qualitative improvements, enhanced classification systems, more advanced analytics, and refined visualization of investor distribution across sectors and countries. The mapping thus became both more precise and more user-friendly, enabling stakeholders to pinpoint regional strengths, investment gaps, and partnership opportunities.
The collective effort of all FINE partners has been crucial to these achievements. Each organization contributed regional expertise and validated local data, while Truffle Capital ensured methodological consistency and quality control. This joint approach not only improved the robustness of the tool but also strengthened the community of practice around European fintech. The consortium’s cooperative spirit, rooted in transparency and shared learning, ensures that the mapping remains a living resource, continuously evolving with market realities.
In September 2025, the investor mapping was further expanded, confirming its role as an essential, continuously updated European resource. The latest version now includes 230 entries, reflecting a broader, more diversified investor base. New additions encompass five investors from Malta, eight from Cyprus, and four from Greece, enhancing the representation of Southern and island economies and moving the mapping closer to full European coverage. This enrichment highlights the consortium’s commitment to inclusiveness and balanced development, ensuring that smaller markets are equally visible and integrated within Europe’s innovation landscape.
With this progress, the FINE mapping stands as both a repository of reliable investment data and a strategic tool for fostering cross-border collaboration. It helps policymakers identify regulatory trends, investors spot emerging opportunities, and startups connect with the right financial partners. Under the continued leadership of Truffle Capital, Work Package 1 has evolved into a cornerstone of the FINE Network’s impact-promoting a more integrated, informed, and collaborative European investment ecosystem. The 2025 update not only expanded the database but also reinforced the project’s legacy: a unified European platform where innovation meets capital, and where transparency and cooperation drive sustainable, inclusive growth.