Cosmico, a scale-up driving innovation in the human resources sector and operating in Italy and Spain, has announced the completion of a €12 million hybrid equity and debt funding round led by P101, which acts as lead investor. Existing investors also participated in the round, including Prana Ventures, which has been supporting the company’s growth since 2023. At the same time, Cosmico has finalised the acquisition of 100% of Flatmates (which it had already initiated), the creator agency co-founded by Michele Pagani and Marcello Ascani that applies the talent-as-a-service model to the creator economy, bringing forward the original plan by two years. The funding round will finance the next phase of expansion, with three new acquisitions planned by the end of 2026.
The announcement comes at a time when the business is gaining momentum. Having closed 2025 with a turnover of €24 million – representing year-on-year growth of 109% – the Cosmico Group has already secured €20 million in sales in the first four months of 2026, of which €1.5 million was generated in Spain. The year-end target is €40 million in revenue from organic business, to which the three planned acquisitions will be added. The trajectory points to €100 million in 2028.
The Group’s ecosystem is currently structured around four complementary verticals: Cosmico (talent-as-a-service for digital professionals), Flatmates (talent-as-a-service for the creator economy), Creative Harbour (community-as-a-service for employee engagement) and Play New (talent process design for building teams of superagents – AI-enhanced talent). This architecture provides the framework within which future acquisitions will be integrated.
The three major transactions expected by the end of 2026 will follow complementary paths. On the one hand, the Group will enter new sectors, thereby expanding its footprint in the distributed labour market. On the other hand, it will strengthen its existing sectors through targeted growth initiatives. The acquisition strategy focuses equally on Italy and Spain, where the Group already has a presence through dedicated operating companies.
P101 has invested through Programme 103, Azimut Eltif Venture Capital P103 and Programme 103R Digital. In particular, Programme 103 is also supported by the European Union through the InvestEU Fund, and Programme 103R Digital is supported by CDP Venture Capital, including through the Digital Transition – PNRR fund, which utilises resources allocated by the EU via the NextGeneration EU initiative, with the aim of promoting the digital transition of supply chains and small and medium-sized enterprises.
Founded in 2021 by Michele Pagani and Marcello Ascani, Flatmates is now one of the most recognisable players in the Italian creator economy, with a strong presence on YouTube and a client roster of over 60 companies, including Ducati, NordVPN, Google, Xiaomi, Trade Republic, Generali and Intesa Sanpaolo. The company operates across four business areas: Factory (talent representation), Agency (brand-creator talent matching), Studio (original content production) and Original (proprietary editorial channels such as FuoriBrief and Clickbait) – all guided by the same community-driven philosophy that characterises the Cosmico Group. This 100% acquisition completes the journey that began in 2024 with the acquisition of a majority stake.
“This funding round forms the financial foundation of a strategy we are proud of,” says Francesco Marino, CEO and co-founder of the Cosmico Group, in a statement (pictured here with his co-founders and the founders of Flatmates, from left: Michele Pagani, Simone Tornabene, Francesco Marino, Marcello Ascani, Matteo Roversi) – Cosmico is no longer a scale-up with a single product: we have become a holding company for the Future of Work, with five verticals today and a growth ambition that also involves extraordinary transactions such as this one. The €20 million already contracted in the first four months tell the story of a machine running at full speed: the €40 million from organic business, on the other hand, is the foundation upon which we will build the €100 million target for 2028.”
“For some years now, and at an ever-increasing pace driven in part by AI, the world of work has been undergoing a drastic transformation in both form and scale,” adds Stefano Guidotti, a partner at P101. “The rationale that convinced us to invest in Cosmico from our very first investment in 2024 is that the market would reward those who can interpret these dynamics and support workers and businesses in constantly adapting to them. The results of the last two years have confirmed both the soundness of this thesis and the capabilities of the management team implementing it, which is why we have decided to double down and become the Group’s lead investor.”
“Becoming a 100% part of the Cosmico Group means multiplying the tools and opportunities available to the creators we represent and the brands we work with,” concludes Michele Pagani, CEO of Flatmates. “We share the same mission as Cosmico: to put talent at the heart of everything we do. For us, this move means being able to scale up even faster in Italy, consolidate our growth in Spain and continue to produce content that reflects the present and anticipates the future of communication. We can dream big.”
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