Trentino-based Smartness announced the closing of a €47 million Series B round, including primary and secondary equity as well as a debt component, in the largest round ever completed in Italy for a vertical SaaS company. The round was led by United Ventures and CDP Venture Capital, with participation from
David Cendon Garcia
Trentino-based Smartness announced the closing of a €47 million Series B round, including primary and secondary equity as well as a debt component, in the largest round ever completed in Italy for a vertical SaaS company.
The round was led by United Ventures and CDP Venture Capital, with participation from existing investor Partech, which also led Smartness’ 2023 €13 million Series A round. With this transaction, the total capital raised by the company now exceeds €60 million.
“We see an opportunity to become one of the leading global players in our segment and the first AI technology provider for hotels and non-hotel accommodations. A structural shift is underway: from providing software to generating tangible results. We started moving in this direction back in 2020, taking direct responsibility for our customers’ performance. Today, the numbers are validating that decision,” says Luca Rodella, CEO and co-founder of Smartness.
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Smartness’s Series B sits within a broader 2026 EU-Startups pattern of funding for hospitality software, TravelTech and AI-enabled operational platforms.
In the same broad sector, Mews, based in Amsterdam, raised €255 million in Series D funding to further invest in AI, automation, payments and agent-driven workflows across hotel operations. Vuelo, based in London, secured a €64 million Seed round to expand its AI-native travel booking, financing and planning platform; also in the UK, Alpa raised €2.9 million at pre-Seed stage to build a real-time financial operating layer for hospitality operators.
In Germany, Nesto raised €11 million in growth equity to scale its AI workforce management platform for hospitality across Europe, while happyhotel raised €6.5 million in Series A funding to develop AI agents for hotel revenue management and support European expansion.
Adjacent AI operations activity also included Berlin-based Bounti, which raised €4 million for an AI-powered operations platform for frontline and deskless workers across hospitality, retail and services, and Oslo-based Altek AI, which raised €423k to expand autonomous guest communication for hotels across the Nordics and Europe.
Taken together, these rounds amount to over €343 million.
“If we look at the leading global SaaS players in lodging, we have been among the fastest, if not the fastest ever, to reach – and then clearly surpass – €10 million in revenue. We believe we have all the ingredients in place to scale quickly to €100 million in revenue and, over time, build a company generating more than €1 billion in revenue,” adds Luca.
Founded in 2020 with its dynamic pricing software Smartpricing, Smartness has grown to more than 5,000 customers across 41 countries with its goal to become the go-to operational partner for hoteliers and property managers.
Despite originally being founded as a single-product company, Smartness eventually expanded its offering to from intelligent pricing management into CRM, payments, a property management system, guest communication, and operational AI solutions.
Alongside its geographic expansion, the company reportedly delivers around 10% month -over-month organic growth, excluding any contribution from acquisitions.
Since its Series A round, the company says they have grown more than 6x. For 2026, the company has set a clear goal: tripling revenue through a combination of organic growth and strategic acquisitions across Europe.
After already completing several M&A transactions, Smartness now intends to accelerate market consolidation even further.
Its long – term vision is to build the world’s first Agentic System for hotels and vacation rentals, a new category of technology in which software does more than provide tools and instead directly carries out operational tasks on behalf of the customer, from dynamic pricing management to automated guest interactions.
“Our investment in Smartness is driven by the strength of a founding team that combines direct hospitality expertise with strong product vision, and by the company’s ability to build distinct yet complementary solutions, all designed to improve day-to-day operations and the experience of hospitality operators.
“In a market evolving from pure software to technologies capable of executing tasks on behalf of the customer, Smartness has all the elements needed to emerge as a European category leader. This trajectory is fully aligned with our investment strategy, and we intend to support the company in its international expansion,” says Fabio Pirovano, Partner at United Ventures.
With this round, Smartness aims to further strengthen its competitive advantage in a global market that is rapidly shifting from software tools to AI-powered operational systems.
