Soource, a start-up founded in 2024 in Bolzano by Maicol Verzotto, together with Nazareno Mario Ciccarello, Silvia Chiarot, Serena Galli and Luca Taddeo (pictured), has announced that it has closed a seed investment round worth 3 million euros. The round is led by Vertis, through its Vertis Venture 5 Scaleup fund, and includes participation from the Swiss venture capital firm Tenity, 360 Capital – which, through its 360 Digitaly fund, had led the previous round closed in January 2025 – and the Investors’ Club. With this round, Soource’s total funding raised since 2025 exceeds €5 million.
Soource will use the funds raised in this round to consolidate its position in the procurement intelligence market in Italy and support its expansion into key European markets.
AI is powerful, but it only delivers reliable results if it works with clean and complete data. In procurement, supplier data is often fragmented, incomplete or unverified. Soource is the platform that organises this data and builds automation on top of it. A single platform for searching, enriching, automating and monitoring all supplier information.
At its core is a proprietary international database containing verified and certified data. An AI system comprising several specialised agents works on this database, with each agent dedicated to a different procurement process: identifying suppliers (discovery), qualifying them, comparing them, contacting them (outreach) and supplementing their details (enrichment). Tasks that currently require hours of manual labour are now automated.
Procurement is evolving from a ‘co-pilot’ model, in which AI supports operators, to an ‘autopilot’ model, in which numerous tasks are carried out automatically whilst keeping reliable and verified data at the heart of the decision-making process.
Just over a year after entering the market, Soource’s platform is already being used by organisations operating in the utilities, pharmaceutical, energy, insurance, food, industrial and construction sectors. The start-up, which has a team of 17 people based at the NOI Techpark in Bolzano, plans to double its workforce by the end of 2027.
“This round marks a crucial milestone in Soource’s growth journey,” says Verzotto, the company’s CEO, in a statement. “One year on from our go-to-market launch, we are working with leading enterprises across every sector and industry. The new funding will enable us to accelerate the development of our data-driven platform, strengthen our team and consolidate our leadership in Italy, with the aim of expanding Soource into the main European markets as well.”
“Thanks to this round of investment, Soource is accelerating a paradigm shift: by integrating advanced supplier and market intelligence, it is transforming procurement from a purely reactive function into a predictive capability, enabling faster, more informed and strategically driven decisions,” adds Ciccarello.
“Artificial intelligence is transforming procurement, but the real competitive advantage lies in the quality and structure of the data on which the algorithms operate. Soource has developed a proprietary infrastructure that enables companies to manage their suppliers more efficiently and strategically, by automating labour-intensive tasks and supporting increasingly data-driven decision-making processes. In just over a year, the team has demonstrated remarkable execution, securing key clients and developing a platform with strong potential for international scalability. We are delighted to support Maicol, Nazareno and the whole team in this new phase of growth,” says Alessandro Pontari, partner at the Vertis Venture 5 Scaleup fund.
“We are proud to support Soource on its journey to innovate in a procurement sector that remains largely undigitised. The team has demonstrated exceptional commercial execution, identifying strong market demand and outlining a clear strategy to transform supplier sourcing into an advanced vendor intelligence system for large industrial groups,” said Guillermo Forteza, Tenity’s investment lead for Europe.
Lucrezia Lucotti, a partner at 360 Capital, says: “We are delighted to continue supporting Soource on its growth journey. Since our initial investment, the company has succeeded in winning the trust of major corporate groups and is becoming a leading player in supplier intelligence in the Italian market.”
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