Cato folds Avvista.ai into its AI tender platform after €1.6M raise
What's the deal? CatoDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, an Italian startup using AI to automate public tenders, has acquired Avvista.aiDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → through an acqui-hire. The deal brings Avvista.ai founder Riccardo Sabatti and his team into Cato, along with a self-service tool built for companies that run few tenders and lack a dedicated procurement office.
Why an acqui-hire? The transaction value was not disclosed. Under the acqui-hire model, Cato is buying the team's expertise rather than the company itself, with the cost calculated as salaries for those joining — closer to recruitment than a merger.
Why now? Cato just closed a €1.6 million pre-seed round led by Italian Founders FundDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and ended its first year with more than 100 clients. The Avvista.ai deal extends its reach from large, active bidders down to SMEs and occasional participants.
What's the endgame? Cato folds Avvista.ai's self-service technology into its workflow automation engine, aiming to cover the full spectrum of demand — from SMEs entering public procurement for the first time to established organisations managing complex tenders.
Cato's platform monitors over 100 official sources, filters more than 250,000 tenders, and automates large portions of bid preparation. Sabatti's tool adds a lighter, self-service layer for occasional bidders who cannot justify a specialised team.
The market: Italy's public tender market is worth €309 billion and is set to grow 13.9% by 2025, per ANAC. Yet 60% of SMEs still struggle to compete, hampered by the difficulty of finding relevant calls and preparing documents on time. Legislative Decree 36/2023, which made digitising the entire contract cycle mandatory, has added regulatory pressure on smaller tender departments.
The signal: The deal reflects a wider trend in early-stage B2B SaaS and AI — buying small, specialised teams to speed up roadmap execution rather than chasing headline M&A. It also positions Cato within a broader European push to use AI to digitise public procurement.
Read more: Startupbusiness
