TWIS #291
Casavo, Smartwage, Cato, Neocad and Zell raised funding. Radical Partners is waiting for VC pitch decks.
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 💰
Casavo, a proptech startup, raised €12.9m in a Growth round from Project A, Picus Capital, EVRG 18, and Salica Investments.
Smartwage, a welfare startup, raised €2m in a Pre-seed round from Step Fund, and Zest.
Cato, a public tender assistant, 🇮🇹raised €1.6m in a Pre-seed round from Italian Founders Fund, Heartfelt, Vento, BHeroes, Moonstone, Alecla7, Nova, and business angels.
Neocad, a smart engineering startup, raised €550k in a Pre-seed round from 40Jemz Ventures, CDP Venture Capital, Zest, Coima, Ariston, and Nova Capital.
Zell, a sales-tech startup, raised €0.5m in a Seed round from P3 Ventures, SkyDeck Europe, UC Berkeley SkyDeck, Lendlease, Cariplo Factory, Mamba Ventures, Nicola Pivaro, Flavio Di Palo, Pietro Tansini, Thomas Hunziker, Gabriele Sidoti, and Ricardo Waller.
New funds 💫
Radical Partners, a fund-of-funds operator, launches its call for pitches from VCs:
M&A 🥩
Mavriq completes acquisition of Switcho: 100% Exit closes | Mamacrowd.
Libraesva and Cyber Guru Complete Strategic Combination and Launch LibraCyber, a New European Cybersecurity Leader.
Lutech acquired Valyrian Enterprise Solutions.
Reading this week📚
JetHR 🇮🇹launches a new Enterprises division | MilanoFinanza.
You’re the best, the most brilliant, there’s nobody in the world like you | Matteo Flora.
An 🇮🇹interview with Guido Brera, founder of Be Water, about global finance, energy, and the impact of AI | Repubblica.
Cryptobooks 🇮🇹becomes Finbooks and expands its product offering.
🇮🇹An interview with Gianluca Dettori (Primo Capital) | La Stampa.
The signs of the SaaSpocalypse are increasing:
Marc Benioff@BenioffWelcome Salesforce Headless 360: No Browser Required! Our API is the UI. Entire Salesforce & Agentforce & Slack platforms are now exposed as APIs, MCP, & CLI. All AI agents can access data, workflows, and tasks directly in Slack, Voice, or anywhere else with Salesforce Headless3:29 AM · Apr 17, 2026 · 5.05M Views355 Replies · 703 Reposts · 6.35K Likes
Jobs in Italian Startups🌟
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New this week:
Startup Events in Italy🎪
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New this week:
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.