Cato raises €6M to expand its AI platform for public sector sales

Italian AI company Cato has secured €6 million in seed funding to expand its platform that assists businesses in locating, analyzing, and competing for public sector tenders. The investment round was led by Keen Venture Partners, with additional backing from Vento, Heartfelt, Moonstone, BHeroes, Alecla7, Nova Venture, and angel investors such as the founders of Lexroom, Sibill, and Pillar. This brings Cato's total funding to €7.6 million, following a pre-seed round led by Italian Founders Fund.

Public procurement represents about 14% of the EU's GDP, equivalent to approximately €2.5 trillion annually across more than 250,000 contracting authorities. In Italy alone, public tenders amounted to €309 billion in 2025, as reported by ANAC. For companies vying for public contracts, the process entails screening numerous notices, reviewing extensive tender documents, verifying eligibility criteria, and creating administrative and technical bids.

Cato aims to automate certain aspects of this workflow while maintaining customer control over final submissions.

The platform monitors over 27,000 sources in real-time and ranks tenders according to their relevance to individual businesses. Cato's AI technology examines tender documents to identify requirements and evaluation criteria, detects potential contradictions between documents, and pre-fills administrative and technical bid materials using customer-provided information. Data generated by the platform remains traceable back to its original sources.

Since its launch six months ago, Cato has processed thousands of tenders for clients across Italy, spanning SMEs to large enterprises in sectors such as medical devices, construction, IT, and services. The company's CEO and co-founder, Andrea Zorzetto, expressed satisfaction in clients' feedback, noting that the technology serves as a valuable ally in identifying suitable public tenders, comprehending requirements, and preparing bids, thereby enhancing their chances of winning and expanding their operations.

The funding will be allocated towards further developing the platform, expanding commercial operations, and increasing the team. Cato also intends to broaden the platform's scope to other sectors and support multinational customers with tender processes outside Italy, as it begins its international expansion.