Smartness, an agentic technology platform for the lodging industry, has raised €47 million in what the company describes as the largest-ever round in Italy for a Vertical AI company. The funding comes as Smartness pushes to redefine how hospitality operators engage with software, shifting the model from purchasing tools to purchasing outcomes.
The company, headquartered in a small Alpine town rather than a major tech hub, has surpassed €10 million in annual recurring revenue faster than any competitor in the B2B SaaS lodging space while sustaining 10% month-over-month growth at tens of millions in ARR. The raise draws fresh capital from United Ventures and CDP Venture Capital SGR, who join an already ambitious team that twice came within 30 days of running out of cash before reaching this milestone.
The path to this raise defied conventional startup playbooks. Smartness built multiple products simultaneously, pursued mergers and acquisitions early in its lifecycle, and prioritized raw talent over experienced hires — moves that drew skepticism from the broader startup community. The company’s Series A process took six months, but when the team opened its virtual data room for the latest round, several term sheets arrived within two weeks. Net revenue retention above 150% signals that existing customers are not only staying but also dramatically expanding their platform usage, a metric that resonated strongly with institutional investors evaluating the business.
Co-founder Luca Rodella credited a combination of luck, obsession, and what he called outright insanity for the company’s survival and growth. Smartness currently has open roles as it scales operations beyond Italy and into international markets, with its agentic system positioned as the infrastructure layer connecting lodging operators to measurable business results. The company’s unconventional origin story — mountains, cows, and Wi-Fi, as Rodella described it — has become central to its identity as a challenger brand in a market dominated by legacy software vendors.
The raise positions Smartness at the frontier of vertical AI adoption in European hospitality, a sector historically slow to embrace automation and outcome-based contracting. With net revenue retention exceeding 150% and a growing enterprise customer base across the lodging vertical, the company enters its next phase with institutional backing and a clear mandate to build globally from its Alpine headquarters.
KEY QUOTE:
“We’re building the first true agentic system for lodging — shifting hospitality from buying software to buying outcomes.”
Luca Rodella, Co-Founder, Smartness
