The Conditional Subscription Agreement (Accordo di Sottoscrizione Condizionato – ASC in Italian) is a tool that combines legal innovation with a regulated financial infrastructure to align the co-investment processes of funds and private investors, making transactions faster and more efficient. It was developed by Weltix, a fintech platform specialising in the digitalisation of unlisted financial instruments (private assets), in collaboration with Lexia and the Italian Tech Alliance.
The tool will be officially unveiled in Milan in the coming days to demonstrate its features and practical applications. ASC has already been used in real-world scenarios, such as a secondary market transaction by D-Orbit worth €8 million.
In the current climate, investment processes that combine venture capital and private equity funds with private investors are often characterised by misaligned timelines, operational complexity and fragmented processes, which have a negative impact on execution and the success of the transaction. The ASC was created to overcome these inefficiencies by introducing a mechanism that allows capital to be raised from private investors, in a regulated manner, prior to the closing of the funds, subjecting the investment to conditions precedent. All of this is carried out through platforms authorised and supervised by Consob in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2020/1503 (ECSP).
By combining the legal framework with a regulated digital infrastructure, the ASC enables private investors to evolve from a peripheral role to a fully integrated and strategic part of the funding round.
“With ASC, we set out to solve a very real problem: the mismatch between institutional investors and retail funding channelled through financial intermediaries. Today, thanks to a combination of legal innovation and regulated digital infrastructure, it is possible to structure funding rounds in which all investors converge on the same closing date, efficiently and transparently. “With this initiative, Weltix is consolidating its role as the leading infrastructure for the digitalisation of private markets in Italy and reshaping the way institutional and private capital invest together,” said Antonio Chiarello, CEO and founder of Weltix.
Lexia has contributed to the development of the ASC’s contractual framework, defining its legal basis and how it is applied in various investment contexts. “The Conditional Subscription Agreement represents a natural evolution in investment logic, introducing a legal framework that allows the complexity of multi-investor rounds to be managed in an orderly and secure manner. It is a flexible tool, ready for use in actual transactions,” says Francesco Dagnino, managing partner at Lexia.
The Italian Tech Alliance supports the dissemination and discussion of these new operating models. “Fostering alignment between institutional and private capital is a key step for the growth of the Italian innovation ecosystem. Tools such as the ASC represent an interesting step in this direction and, as Italian Tech Alliance, we are pleased to facilitate their promotion and accessibility for industry operators,” adds Lucia Occhiuto, Head of Legal and Policy at Italian Tech Alliance.
The ASC will be made available to the ecosystem as open source. (Photo by Dimitri Karastelev on Unsplash)
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