Cato raises €6 million for public tender platform

Italian AI company Cato has raised €6 million in seed funding to expand its platform for businesses competing in public tenders. The round was led by Keen Venture Partners, with backing from existing investors Vento, Heartfelt, Moonstone, BHeroes, Alecla7 and Nova Venture, plus angel investors including 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 targets a large procurement market, with public procurement accounting 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.

Cato’s platform supports the tender workflow from opportunity discovery to bid preparation. It monitors more than 27,000 sources in real time, ranks tenders by company relevance, analyses documents for requirements and evaluation criteria, flags potential contradictions and pre-fills administrative and technical materials using customer-provided information.

The company has processed thousands of tenders for Italian customers across sectors including medical devices, construction, IT and services. New funding will support product development, commercial expansion, hiring, broader sector coverage and international tender support for multinational customers.