Milan-based martech startup Cassandra, an AI-driven company revolutionizing how marketing teams make investment decisions, has secured €2 million in a seed funding round led by the Italian Founders Fund to support its international expansion.
- Founded in 2022 by Cristian Nozzi and Gabriele Franco, Cassandra is an AI-powered, self-service Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) platform that helps marketing teams make more informed investment decisions.
- The platform automates MMM, incrementality testing, and media planning, enabling brands to optimize ad spending and maximize ROI without relying on data scientists or external consultants.
- Cassandra allows users to connect their marketing data, which the platform then analyzes to deliver automated insights. These include channel performance analysis, predictive models for future results, media plans optimized for ROI, and budget reallocation recommendations to reduce waste.
- The firm is trusted by over 60 global brands, including Ferragamo, Verisure, Urban Armor Gear, Baltic Born, and Treedom; Cassandra currently analyzes over €500 million in advertising spend annually.
- Since its inception, Cassandra has grown to a team of seven and reached €1 million in ARR within 16 months while maintaining profitability.
Details of the deal
- The funding round was led by the Italian Founders Fund, a Milan-based VC managed by Koinos Capital SGR. In 2024, the fund launched a €50 million initiative to invest in Italian seed and pre-seed startups to support Italy's next generation of talent and digital innovation.
- The investment round also saw participation from Belgium-based Pitchdrive, Italian Webranking, Mana Ventures, and business angels including Lorenzo Lato and Marco Di Pietro.
- The fresh capital will help Cassandra expand into the US and UK, grow its team, and integrate Google’s Meridian for improved platform precision. This will accelerate product development and help the company grow.
“We were pretty alone at the beginning—no one was betting on this space. But today, we’ve expanded our cap table with amazing partners who believe in the future we’re building," co-founder of Cassandra, Gabriele Franco, commented.
