🌍The Next Web (TNW)•Freshcollected in 52m
Smartness Raises €47M for AI Scaling
💡Italy's biggest vertical SaaS fundraise targets AI ops scaling in hospitality
⚡ 30-Second TL;DR
What Changed
Smartness raised €47M Series B funding
Why It Matters
This funding highlights surging investor confidence in AI-driven vertical SaaS, especially in travel and hospitality. It could spur more European AI SaaS investments and innovation in sector-specific automation.
What To Do Next
Demo Smartness' hospitality SaaS to evaluate AI integration for travel apps
Who should care:Founders & Product Leaders
🧠 Deep Insight
Web-grounded analysis with 11 cited sources.
🔑 Enhanced Key Takeaways
- •Smartness has surpassed €10 million in annual revenue and currently serves over 5,000 customers across 41 countries, with a stated goal of reaching €100 million in revenue.
- •The company evolved from its 2020 origins as a dynamic pricing tool (formerly branded as Smartpricing) into a unified platform that integrates CRM, property management systems (PMS), payments, and guest communication.
- •Smartness is actively developing an 'agentic' AI system designed to autonomously perform operational tasks—such as dynamic pricing adjustments and guest interactions—with the objective of reducing hospitality businesses' reliance on Online Travel Agencies (OTAs).
📊 Competitor Analysis▸ Show
| Competitor | Key Features | Pricing Model | Benchmarks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mews | Cloud-based PMS, automation, payments, agent-driven workflows | Subscription-based | Raised €255M Series D (2026) |
| happyhotel | AI agents for revenue management, support | Subscription/Usage | Raised €6.5M Series A (2026) |
| Nesto | AI-powered workforce management for hospitality | Subscription | Raised €11M growth equity (2026) |
🛠️ Technical Deep Dive
- Agentic Architecture: Developing a proprietary AI layer that moves beyond passive software tools to autonomous execution of operational workflows (e.g., pricing, guest messaging).
- Conversational AI Integration: Utilizes ElevenLabs' technology to power AI voice agents for 24/7 customer support and automated sales development (SDR) outreach.
- Data Integration: Centralizes data from multiple channels (WhatsApp, Booking.com, Airbnb, email) into a single interface to train property-specific AI models.
- Workflow Automation: Automates up to 90% of online operations, including CRM segmentation, email marketing campaigns, and cross-selling/upselling triggers.
🔮 Future ImplicationsAI analysis grounded in cited sources
Smartness will achieve a €1 billion valuation.
The company has explicitly stated this as its long-term financial goal, supported by its current trajectory of rapid revenue growth and the scaling of its agentic AI platform.
Smartness will transition from a software provider to a performance-based service provider.
The company has already begun shifting its business model toward taking direct responsibility for customer performance, as evidenced by its 'Smartresults' product which uses a results-based payment model.
⏳ Timeline
2020-01
Smartness founded in Trentino, Italy, initially launching as dynamic pricing software 'Smartpricing'.
2023-12
Closed a €13 million Series A funding round led by Partech.
2025-03
Rebranded from Smartpricing to Smartness, consolidating multiple modules into a unified platform.
2025-08
Partnered with ElevenLabs to integrate conversational AI for support and sales agents.
2026-05
Raised €47 million in Series B funding, the largest vertical SaaS round in Italy to date.
📎 Sources (11)
Factual claims are grounded in the sources below. Forward-looking analysis is AI-generated interpretation.
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