Cato will use the funding to develop its public tender platform, expand commercial operations, grow its team and support customers across additional sectors and international markets.
Italian AI company Cato has raised €6 million in seed funding to expand its platform for helping businesses find, analyse and compete for public tenders. The round was led by Keen Venture Partners, with participation from existing investors Vento, Heartfelt, Moonstone, BHeroes, Alecla7 and Nova Venture, alongside angel investors including the founders of Lexroom, Sibill and Pillar.
The investment follows a pre-seed round led by Italian Founders Fund and brings Cato’s total funding to €7.6 million.
Cato develops an AI platform that supports companies across the public tender process, from identifying opportunities to analysing requirements and preparing bids. Public procurement accounts for around 14 per cent of EU GDP, or approximately €2.5 trillion annually across more than 250,000 contracting authorities. In Italy, public tenders were worth €309 billion in 2025, according to ANAC.
For businesses competing for public contracts, the process can involve screening large numbers of notices, reviewing lengthy tender documents, checking eligibility requirements and preparing administrative and technical bids. Cato aims to automate parts of this workflow while keeping the final submission under the customer’s control.
The platform monitors more than 27,000 sources in real time and ranks tenders based on their relevance to individual companies. Its AI analyses tender documents to extract requirements and evaluation criteria, identifies potential contradictions between documents and pre-fills administrative and technical bid materials using information provided by the customer. Information generated through the platform is linked back to its original sources.
Six months after launch, Cato has processed thousands of tenders for customers across Italy, ranging from SMEs to large companies in sectors including medical devices, construction, IT and services.
In this first phase we have already managed thousands of tenders. Our greatest satisfaction is hearing from our clients that they see our technology as a true ally: it helps them find the most suitable public tenders, understand the requirements and prepare their bid, increasing their chances of winning and growing,
said Andrea Zorzetto, CEO and co-founder of Cato.
The funding will be used to further develop the platform, expand Cato’s commercial operations and grow its team. The company also plans to extend the platform into additional sectors and support existing multinational customers with tender processes outside Italy as it begins expanding internationally.