Gianni Matera is a man who knows what he wants – three or four ponies would suit him very nicely thank you. Only he is not speaking of our four legged friends but of startups valued at between $10million and $100million. The term ‘pony’ was coined by US money man Dave McClure of 500startups fame back in 2015. Ponies grow up to be Centaurs, valued between $100million and $1billion and then a lucky few make it to the Unicorn stage of $1billion plus. Matera, an Italian entrepreneur successfully sold his last company, DigiTouch, in 2007 for €44million and decided to look for a life and career outside of Italy. He chose Ireland as his new home because of the ease with which he fitted into Irish society, the support of Enterprise Ireland (EI) and the close business connections to the US.   For the past two years he has operated as a Super Angel Investor in Ireland through his fund Growing Capital. He has invested a total of €4.8 million in 14 startups of which €2.2 million came from his own personal wealth; €1.5 million came from EI (HPSU Fund) and the remaining €1.1 million from the European Angel […]