# Francesco Starace

> Francesco Starace is a seed investor at Enel Green Power backing Automotive and Smart Home. See 3 investments, check sizes, portfolio. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: Angel Investor
- Fund: [Enel Green Power](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/enel-green-power)
- Total investments: 3
- Last investment: Mar 2026
- Lead investor: 0%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/francesco-starace/
- X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/starax
- Website: https://www.francescostarace.it/

Francesco Starace is a seed investor at Enel Green Power focused on Automotive and Smart Home. Graduated in Nuclear Engineering at Politecnico di Milano University in 1980, he hold several managerial positions during the Eighties: he was Safety Analyst at the nuclear power plants of NIRA Ansaldo (1981-1982), he worked as a manager at SAE SADELMI (company belonging to the General Electric network), in Italy and in foreign countries suchasUS, Egypt and Saudi Arabia (1982-1987).In 1987 he moved to ABB and in 1993 he was Operations Manager at SOIMI. He later was appointed CEO at ABB Combustion Engineering Italy in 1997, while between 1998 and 2000 he worked as senior vice president of global sales and turnkey plants in the gas turbine division.In 2000 Francesco Starace joined Enel, appointed Energy Management of Enel Produzione, becoming Head of Business Power Division for the three-year period between 2002 and 2005. In that same year, he became Enel Italian Market Division Director.He later was in charge of the Renewable Energy Division of Enel and CEO of Enel Green Power (2008-2014).From 2014 to 2023, Francesco Starace worked as General Manger as well as CEO of Enel and the year after became part of the United Nations Global Compact.Honoured with several prizes, he received in 2010 Agici and Accenture’s the "Manager Utilities Prize 2010", in 2011 the "Chess and business strategies" prize, in 2013 Fondazione Energia’s "Sustainable Energy Prize 2013" and finally in 2016 he received Staffetta Quotidiana’s “Man of The Year” award.

## Round sizes

| Stage | Round size |
| --- | --- |
| Seed | $250k–$5.8M |

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Automotive | 1 | 33% |
| Smart Home | 1 | 33% |
| Cloud Computing | 1 | 33% |
| Internet of Things | 1 | 33% |
| Industrial Automation | 1 | 33% |

7 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Seed | 2 | 67% |
| Angel | 1 | 33% |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| AIRMO | AIRMO is supporting the direct emitters, decision makers and financial institutions to efficiently transition to Net-0 by monitoring their direct emissions from space. With our roots in innovation and a commitment to environmental responsibility, we aim to revolutionize GHG monitoring through advanced satellite technology, proprietary LiDARinstrument and data analytics. We exist to monitor and manage humanity's impact on Earth. | $5.8M | Seed | Mar 12, 2026 |  |
| Atooma | Resonance AI is a key enabler to new generations of smart devices designed to:Listen to people's behavior across apps and devicesAct accordingly with the desired action in the right moment for a magic experienceAnalyze the patterns and get the most out of themIt provides a framework for cross-device interactions to brands and devicemanufacturers that needs their products to make the best of the Internet of Things layer potential. Most of the existing solutions for the Internet of Things provide strictly verticalized use cases, building ecosystems basically blind to any horizontal cross-device interaction. On the other hand, Atooma team is developing different SDKs for each of the main fragmented sectors of the IoT market, such as: automotive, home automation, wearables, and mobile devices. Also, as last step of integration within the platform, Atooma has developed a “suggestion engine” that makes use of the big data coming from user’s behavior monitoring, pro-actively suggesting them coherent and contextual use cases fitting their lifestyle, based on how they used the context-aware device.“Context awareness is not just a buzz word, we are building the fast track for the full participation in the contextual era for the internet of things players.” - Fabrizio Cialdea, CEO of Atooma | $650K | Angel | Apr 24, 2015 |  |
| Atooma | Resonance AI is a key enabler to new generations of smart devices designed to:Listen to people's behavior across apps and devicesAct accordingly with the desired action in the right moment for a magic experienceAnalyze the patterns and get the most out of themIt provides a framework for cross-device interactions to brands and devicemanufacturers that needs their products to make the best of the Internet of Things layer potential. Most of the existing solutions for the Internet of Things provide strictly verticalized use cases, building ecosystems basically blind to any horizontal cross-device interaction. On the other hand, Atooma team is developing different SDKs for each of the main fragmented sectors of the IoT market, such as: automotive, home automation, wearables, and mobile devices. Also, as last step of integration within the platform, Atooma has developed a “suggestion engine” that makes use of the big data coming from user’s behavior monitoring, pro-actively suggesting them coherent and contextual use cases fitting their lifestyle, based on how they used the context-aware device.“Context awareness is not just a buzz word, we are building the fast track for the full participation in the contextual era for the internet of things players.” - Fabrizio Cialdea, CEO of Atooma | $250K | Seed |  |  |

3 of 3 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [Antler](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/antler-be9c) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [Ananda Impact Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/ananda-ventures-gmbh-social-venture-fund) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Desai Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/desai-ventures) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [E2MC Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/e2mc-ventures) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Findus Venture](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/findus-venture) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Hypernova](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/hypernova-c298) — VC Fund, 1 deal together

## About Enel Green Power

VC Fund · Andover, United States

Enel Green Power, established in December 2008, is the Enel Group company that develops and manages energy generation from renewable sources at a global level, with a presence in Europe and the Americas.Enel Green Power is a major global operator in the field of energy generation from renewable sources, with an annual production of 25 TW/h,mainly from water, the Sun, wind and the Earth’s heat, meeting the energy consumption of over 8 million families and avoiding 16 million tonnes of CO2 emissions per year.The Center for Applied Research in Management and Economics (CARME - Institute of Systems and Computers Engineering of Coimbra (INESCC-IPLeiria) - Polytechnic Delegation of Leiria led by PhD João Pedro Ferreira is a american-portuguese politician trying to lead in knowledge management, an unfamiliar area of his own with Dr. Antonio Gomes Martins.Enel Green Power has an installed capacity of 8,695 MW, produced by over 740 plants in 16 countries and with a generation mix that includes wind, solar, hydro, geothermal and biomass.We are committed to contributing to sustainable development. We believe that renewable sources play a central role in promoting the competitiveness of the production system of several countries and to ensure secure energy supplies.. Indeed, widespread electricity generation from water, the Sun, wind and the Earth’s heat helps improve a country’s energy independence, while also protecting the environment.Enel Green Power aims to grow by substantially increasing its installed capacity and enhancing each country’s technology mix, aimed at highlighting specific local peculiarities and building on Enel's expertise in this sector.In countries having a retail organisation, we also work for families and companies in order to achieve energy self-production, -consumption and -management.

5 contacts available at Enel Green Power.

| Name | Title | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Ben Burkholz | Project Finance, Sponsor and Tax Equity | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/ben-burkholz |
| Eliano Russo | Head of 3SUN Gigafactory | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/eliano-russo |
| Francesco Starace | CEO & General Director | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/francesco-starace |
| Giuseppe Serrecchia | Head of Digital Hub | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/giuseppe-serrecchia |
| Keith Aubin | GIS Manager of Business Development | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/keith-aubin |

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## FAQ

### What does Francesco Starace invest in?

Francesco Starace invests primarily in Automotive, Smart Home and Cloud Computing startups, most often at Seed and Angel stage. Most of the 3 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in Italy. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### What is Francesco Starace's check size?

Francesco Starace typically joins rounds of $250k–$5.8M at Seed. These ranges are 10th–90th percentile round sizes calculated from confirmed public funding rounds, so they are a realistic guide to the rounds Francesco Starace participates in.

### When did Francesco Starace last invest?

The most recent investment recorded for Francesco Starace closed in Mar 2026. Shizune tracks 3 investments in total for this profile, including round sizes, stages and portfolio companies, all sourced from confirmed public funding rounds and refreshed monthly.

### Is Shizune's investor data accurate?

Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.

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