Vivilo, an Italian start-up formerly known as Jubatus, has announced that it has secured a pre-seed funding round of €628,000. The company develops proprietary technology for the automated creation and distribution of personalised photos, clips and videos for event attendees.
The capital raised will enable the company to accelerate its growth through investment in marketing and brand awareness, platform enhancement, technological development and team expansion. Part of the funds will also be allocated to the development of proprietary technology for the recognition of motorbikes, cars, helmets and vehicle models used in competitive motorsport – one of the sectors in which the start-up intends to further strengthen its position.
The funding round is backed by a group of Italian investors, including company CEOs, executives, entrepreneurs, engineers, lawyers and professionals with experience in the business and technology sectors.
“Vivilo’s key success factors are: first and foremost, its advanced, proprietary and protected technology, which gives it a competitive edge; supported by a strong and highly skilled team with a proven track record of execution; and, finally, the new capital, which will enable the company to accelerate its commercial and marketing development, fostering rapid and scalable business growth,” says Daniel Pagnoni, an investor and business advisor to the start-up, in a statement.
The deal comes at a time of growth for Vivilo, which is already profitable and aims to become the leading player in Europe in the distribution of personalised photo and video content for major events.
“Vivilo was born out of a very simple experience: attending an important event, experiencing a moment that requires preparation, effort and emotion, and realising you don’t have any professional content that truly captures it,” says Logan Para, CEO and co-founder of Vivilo “From there, we began building technology that would allow every participant to find themselves within the event, not just through a photo, but through content ready to be downloaded, saved and shared. With this funding round, we aim to accelerate commercial growth, strengthen the platform and take Vivilo into new sectors, from sport and motorsport to festivals, trade fairs, concerts and community events.”
Founded by Logan Para, Marco Ciabini and Gionata Manduchi (pictured here with the team), Vivilo was born out of the convergence of a real-world need and advanced technological expertise. The idea took shape in 2021, when Para, having become a father and decided to sign up for his first triathlon, realised at the end of the race that he had no professional video of his participation. That realisation sparked an idea: to create a company capable of transforming the experience of events into personalised content, accessible quickly and purchasable online.
Shortly afterwards, a meeting with Marco Ciabini, one of Europe’s leading experts in computer vision, led to the development of the proprietary technology underpinning the platform. With the arrival of the third founder, Gionata Manduchi, Vivilo built a system capable of recognising attendees, generating personalised content and distributing it automatically within a few hours of the event ending.
Today, Vivilo’s technology can identify faces, numbers, objects, car and motorbike models, helmets and other visual elements, generating personalised content for each participant: photographs, short clips and vertical videos in Reel format, professionally edited to include scenes of the user and the event, ready to be downloaded and shared on social media.
Vivilo works both with event organisers, handling the production, distribution and sale of content to end users, and with partners who already produce photos and videos and choose to use the start-up’s technology to distribute content more quickly, efficiently and at scale.
“For years, the post-event phase has been a slow, manual and undervalued process: large quantities of material to sort through, long delivery times, and difficulties for participants in finding their own content,” the founders add. “Vivilo aims to change this process: to make the distribution of photos and videos simpler and create an additional source of revenue for organisers, whilst maintaining high-quality content and reducing the operational workload after the event.”
The platform’s value also lies in its speed of processing: content can be made available within a few hours of the event ending, when memories of the experience are still fresh and the likelihood of purchasing and sharing is at its highest. This is particularly important for sporting events, motorsport, music festivals, community events, trade fairs, concerts, graduation ceremonies and large-scale gatherings.
Vivilo is already a partner of numerous events and organisations in the sector, including Rockin’1000, L’Étape du Tour de France, the Milan-Cortina Olympics, the Mugello Circuit, Eroica and the Bologna Marathon, as well as events such as GF Squali, Oceanman, the International Triathlon Bardolino, Monsterland, Lake Garda 42, the Florence Half Marathon, the Rimini Marathon, the Prosecco Run, the Italian Triathlon Championships and H-Farm Business School.
The team currently comprises nine people and will continue to grow over the coming months with the addition of new specialist staff, starting with the accounting and finance department. The start-up is already looking towards international expansion: the aim is to consolidate its position in the European market for personalised videos for major events and then, potentially by the end of 2027, to begin entering the US market.
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