Milan-based startup Cato has secured €6 million in a seed funding round led by Keen Venture Partners. Existing investors, including Vento, Heartfelt, Moonstone, BHeroes, Alecla7, and Nova Venture, participated alongside new angel investors from companies like Lexroom, Sibill, and Pillar. This investment brings the total funding for the company to €7.6 million within its first year of operation.
Founded in 2025 by Andrea Zorzetto and Matteo Bossolini, Cato provides an AI-native platform designed to assist businesses in identifying and managing public procurement tenders. The company reports that it tracks over 27,000 sources to help clients find relevant contracts, extract requirements, and automate the drafting of bid sections. The platform currently serves a diverse range of clients from SMBs to large corporations.
The company plans to utilize the new capital to enhance its platform, expand its commercial reach, and grow its team. Cato has recently appointed Luisa Gamba, formerly of Amazon Business, to its senior leadership team. Previously, the startup acquired Avvista.ai through an acqui-hire. Cato aims to expand its services into new sectors and enter markets beyond Italy to meet demand from multinational clients.
Cato operates in a market where government contracts represent approximately 14 percent of the EU GDP, totaling about €2.5 trillion annually. In Italy alone, public tenders reached €309 billion in 2025, marking a 13.9 percent year-on-year increase. The company claims its growth rate currently exceeds that of 95 percent of B2B SaaS companies worldwide, according to 2025 ChartMogul benchmarks.
