TWIS #277 - Welcome to 2026!
Lever Bio, Principled Intelligence, Pipein, Dresso raised funding. Ping Identity acquired Keyless.
Hello,
Welcome back to The Week in Italian Startups. This is Niccolò from Primo Capital: every week, I publish my curated list of the latest news from the Italian startup ecosystem.
The Money 💰
Lever Bio, a cancer immunotherapy startup, extended its seed round to €9m, raising from Claris Ventures, Ora Global, Club degli Investitori, and Italian Angels for Growth.
Principled Intelligence, an AI-alignment startup, raised €1.85m in a Pre-seed round from Polo Nazionale di Trasferimento Tecnologico per l'Intelligenza Artificiale e la Cybersecurity, BlackSheep, and Eden Ventures.
Pipein, a robotic inspection company, 🇮🇹raised €1.1m in a Growth round from BlueRobots, Fondo PiemonteNext-Comparto Due, and RoboIT.
Dresso, a fashion-tech startup, raised €1m in a Early-stage round from undisclosed investors.
The Money - Italians in the world 🌎
Even Healthcare raised €20m in a Growth round from Lachy Groom, Alpha Wave, and Sharrp Ventures.
M&A🥩
Ping Identity acquired Keyless.
Reading this week📚
🇮🇹Three Italian investors weigh in on the AI bubble | Startupitalia.
🇮🇹Pizzatech Podcast: storie di startup e tech founder italiani all’estero | A podcast about Italian founders building abroad, by Pizza Tech.
Casavo is 🇮🇹raising €12m in a controversial round that is diluting to zero existing shareholders.
Satispay 🇮🇹expanded its wealth management offering with three new funds.
AMD x Generative Bionics: Gene.01 Unveiled at CES 2026 | Generative Bionics.
Are “Consensus” Seed Rounds Better? | AngelList.
2025 at a glance
In a few weeks we will be flooded by detailed analyses about the last year in VC in Italy, but let me serve you an appetizer from my tracker:
2025 was the second best year on (my) record in terms of capital raised by Italian startups - about €1.6Bn:
Q4 2025 was the best quarter on (my) record for capital raised:
In the list of the 10 biggest rounds raised in the year, Exein appeared twice (#3 and #5). Good performance from biotech (AAVantgarde Bio #2, NanoPhoria #4), and an unexpected but very welcome humanoid robotics player (Generative Bionics, #6). Bending Spoons was #1.
The most active investors in terms of mentions include (overwhelmingly and unsurprisingly) CDP Venture Capital, mentioned in more than 60 rounds; Vento (18) and Azimut (12) complete the podium. Primo Capital (10), Club Degli Investitori (9), Italian Founders Fund (9) follow.
Some statistics about the rounds in my tracker:
# of rounds: 244
About half labelled “pre-seed” or “seed” in the news articles.
Median: €2.1m
Average: €6.6m
Jobs in Italian Startups🌟
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Fundraising Tracker 📈
Ending Notes📝
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Giacomo Mollo and I comment weekly on the latest news: subscribe to our podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcast, Amazon Music, and other platforms to get additional insights on what is happening in the Italian ecosystem.
N.
Nice coverage of the Ping Identity-Keyless acquisition, that one flew under the radar a bit. Zero-knowledge biometrics are becoming critical in identity stacks, especially with the rise of deepfakes. I've been watching the robotic inspection space too and Pipein's focus on pipeline maintenance is pretty niche but necesary. Municipals are finally waking up to predictive maintenance ROI after years of reactive infrastrucutre spending.