Eleva AI raises €500K pre-seed to run malls with AI agents
What's the deal? Eleva AIDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a Spanish startup building artificial intelligence agents for large physical spaces, has raised a €500,000 pre-seed round led by Encomenda Capital PartnersDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. Business angels and advisors from Spain's tech ecosystem and the physical venues sector also took part.
What's the endgame? Eleva AI runs a platform that operates spaces such as shopping centres, airports, and stadiums. It connects a layer of AI agents to a single data lake, pulling in conversations, footfall, CRM, ERP, loyalty, and contract data to act across visitor experience, marketing, asset management and leasing, and operations.
What's it building? "We are not building a chatbot. We are building the AI platform that operates physical spaces," said chief executive officer and co-founder Xavi Pin. He added the round lets the company "build faster and lead this category globally."
Why now? The startup already has agents deployed in shopping centres run by WestfieldDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Klépierre, and Carmila. In Spain it operates at Westfield La Maquinista, which draws more than 16 million visits a year, and La Gavia in Madrid; it expects to be present in more than 90 centres nationally within 12 months.
Going global: Eleva AI has expanded to the Middle East via Dubai's Mall of the Emirates, a venue in Italy, and an airport in Iceland through its technology partner Mappedin — all within six months.
Who's backing it? Encomenda, a Barcelona-based firm led by Carlos Blanco and Mercè Tell, invested through its Encomenda Seed II vehicle. Its partners have backed more than 250 companies. "High-traffic physical spaces need a layer of knowledge about their visitor that they lack today, and Eleva AI is building it," said Javier Darriba, general partner at Encomenda. UnitateaDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a vehicle backed by Draper B1Dealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, also participated.
The signal: At €500,000, this is a small early cheque — but it lands as investors look for AI applications with real-world deployment rather than demos. Eleva AI's live pilots across major mall operators give it a foothold in a category still forming.
Read more: El Referente
Image credit: Generated with Gemini
