Soource, a startup founded in 2024 in Bolzano by former European diving gold medallist Maicol Verzotto, together with Nazareno Mario Ciccarello, Silvia Chiarot, Serena Galli and Luca Taddeo (pictured), announced the closing of its €1.5m pre-seed investment round. The round was led by 360 Capital through the 360 Digitaly fund, supported by CDP Venture Capital Digital Transition Fund – PNRR through the resources allocated by the NextGeneration EU initiative. Investors also included Exor Ventures with Vento, Investors Club Members through Simon Fiduciaria, Vesper, B Heroes and other business angels.
Soource develops an artificial intelligence-based platform to optimise the process of identifying and selecting suppliers. Through an advanced search engine and automated email streams, companies can map their entire target market, interact with thousands of suppliers and quickly identify the most suitable one for their needs.
Unlike traditional supplier search systems, which allow limited searches by keywords, product categories or filters on restricted databases of already registered suppliers, Soource starts with a free text search and queries a comprehensive database that includes all companies on the market.
The start-up, which currently consists of a team of 17 people working at the NOI Techpark in Bolzano, aims to grow to 40 employees by 2025.
“Soource is positioned in the strategic phase of supplier discovery and pre-qualification, an area of procurement software that is currently underdeveloped but crucial for reducing costs and digitising business processes. In just a few months since our round, the team has brought to market a product that has already been adopted by large Italian and European companies,” says Lucrezia Lucotti, partner at 360 Capital, in a note.
“With the support of our investors, we are ready to refine our product, launch it on the market and optimise the product-market fit. Just as in the world of sport the goal was to reach the highest peaks, go to the Olympics or win a medal at the World Championship, our goal at Soource is to develop the smartest b2b search engine on the market and build the most profiled company database in the world,’ adds Maicol Verzotto, CEO and co-founder of Soource.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ©