Rebranding Giano Capital's Web Presence to a High Impact Website
Jahid Aktar
Rebranding a European VC Firm's Digital Presence to a High-Impact Website in 8 Weeks
The Background
Giano Capital is a European venture capital firm with offices spanning Milan, London, Geneva, and Monte Carlo. The firm operates at the frontier of private markets — specifically pioneering last-stage single asset secondaries in Europe. Their investment thesis is focused on the most critical window of a company's journey: the final sprint to exit.
Their portfolio reflects this conviction, with stakes in some of Europe's highest-growth tech companies including Revolut, GetYourGuide, Preply, Zopa, Marshmallow, and Finn. Led by founding partners with decades of operational and investment experience Giano Capital brings serious pedigree to every investment.
The Challenge
When they came to Missing Piece Studio, they had recently undergone a comprehensive rebrand. Their brand identity had been refreshed with new visual language, updated guidelines, and a sharper positioning. What was lagging behind was their website. It did not anymore reflect who they were, what they stood for, or the calibre of their portfolio.
They needed a new digital home that could keep pace with their ambition.
Specific challenges included-
No dedicated pages for Investment Strategy, Portfolio, Team, or Resources — all critical for discovery and founder outreach
A recently completed rebrand with no equivalent web expression
Venture capital as an industry is visually constrained, so the design had to carry the premium feel through layout, typography, and hierarchy alone
A hard, immovable deadline driven by a major investor event
The Solution
Our process began with a structured discovery phase. We sent Giano Capital a detailed questionnaire designed to extract everything they needed to communicate — their investment philosophy, fund focus, team credentials, portfolio companies, and the audiences they were speaking to. We also received their full suite of new branding and marketing assets to ensure we understood their visual language before a single frame was designed.
Competitor and market research followed. We analysed a curated set of European VC and private equity firm websites — including references the client provided — to understand the visual conventions and content expectations in this category. This research directly informed both our structural and aesthetic decisions.
Phase 1: The Interim Homepage
Given the hard deadline, we made a decisive early call: launch an interim homepage first. This ensured Giano Capital had a credible, on-brand presence live as quickly as possible — capturing any form submissions or inbound traffic while the full site was in production. Speed without compromise.
Site Architecture & Strategy
We moved beyond the one-pager model and architected a multi-page website covering everything the firm needed to communicate. The sitemap includes: Homepage, Investment Strategy, Portfolio, Team, Resources (with sub-sections for White Papers & Research, Events & Webinars, and News & Industry Updates), and Contact.
Each page was structured to serve a specific audience intent — the Investment Strategy page articulates the firm's last-stage secondaries thesis clearly and confidently; the Portfolio page showcases their champion companies; the Team page gives Founding Partners the full-length bios their credibility demands.
Design Approach: The VC Aesthetic
The design challenge was specific to the industry: venture capital does not lend itself to visual excess. There are no product photos, lifestyle imagery, or dense illustration styles. The layout had to carry the premium feel on its own — through typographic hierarchy, structured white space, deliberate colour usage, and the subtle motion of purposeful animations.
We implemented the new Giano Capital branding with precision, adapting it for the constraints and opportunities of the web — a different medium to print or social, with its own rules around legibility, scroll behaviour, and responsive layout. The result is a site that feels unmistakably premium and European without relying on visual shortcuts.
Technical Build
The site was built entirely on Webflow, with a scalable design system and CMS architecture established from the start. This means Giano Capital can independently update their portfolio listings, add team members, publish white papers, and post news and events — without touching a line of code.
To support the team's independence post-launch, we recorded and delivered a comprehensive set of video tutorials walking through every update workflow in the CMS. The handover was treated as a deliverable in its own right.
We didn't just translate the rebrand onto the web. We interpreted it — understanding that great branding for screens requires a different hand than branding for social media and decks.
The Results
The transformation from the previous site to the live Giano Capital website is comprehensive. There is now a fully realised digital brand, structured, strategic, and built for the audiences that matter most to an early-stage European VC firm.
A complete multi-page website covering Investment Strategy, Portfolio, Team, Resources, and Contact
The new brand identity is faithfully expressed in the digital environment for the first time
Strong page performance: the site loads fast and passes core web performance benchmarks
Full CMS architecture enables the Giano Capital team to independently manage portfolio companies, team profiles, events, white papers, and news
Website delivered on time ahead of the investor event — the firm presented a credible digital presence at a critical moment
Scalable foundation built to grow with the firm: new portfolio companies, team members, and resources can be added without developer involvement
Most importantly: Giano Capital's website now reflects who they actually are — a serious, European, operationally credible VC firm with a differentiated thesis and a portfolio of champions.
Testimonial from Client:
Working with Missing Piece Studio was easy and communication was smooth. Their team was responsive and able to quickly adapt to our requests. I’d choose them again. Mauro Marconi, Head of Investor Relations, Giano Capital
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Posted Jun 15, 2026
Designed and launched a website for Giano Capital reflecting their rebrand and portfolio within 8 weeks.
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