How to raise a Series A from Italy and Europe in 2026

On 22 July 2026 Datapizza, an Italian company that builds AI systems for medium and large businesses, announced a €10 million Series A led by Nextalia Ventures. Revenue, its co-founders said, had grown almost tenfold in three years. Rounds like that are getting scarce. Growth Capital and Italian Tech Alliance counted 16 Series A rounds in Italy in the first half of 2026, against 50 in all of 2025, and called the second quarter ‘the worst quarter on record for Series A activity’.

So what does a Series A take in 2026, raising from Italy? Below are the round sizes, the metrics funds check, the road from seed, recent Italian leads and a plan. Still before your first round? Start from the beginner’s map, from zero to a first round.

How big is a Series A in 2026?

A Series A is the first large priced round, usually led by a venture fund, and it pays to scale what the seed round proved. For the whole sequence, see startup funding stages from bootstrapping to Series C.

Start at home. Growth Capital and Italian Tech Alliance have counted between 49 and 54 Series A rounds a year in Italy since 2021. The 50 rounds of 2025 raised €448 million, about €9 million each, an average lifted by a few big deals. In tech.eu’s database, this year’s Italian Series A rounds run from €3 million (Vinhood, July) to €30 million (Subbyx, March).

Across Europe, Dealroom’s May 2026 study puts the median Series A at about $10 million, usually after $2.5 to 3 million raised before it. PitchBook groups Series A and B together for Europe: in Q1 2026 the median deal in that bracket was €17.0 million at a €44.2 million pre-money valuation, per Crowdfund Insider.

The US plays in another league. Carta’s benchmarks, built on rounds by US startups that keep their cap tables on its software, put the median Series A in Q2 2026 at $14.7 million raised at a $76.3 million post-money valuation. That’s about $61.6 million before the new money (our arithmetic). Founders gave up around 18.7%.

Series A requirements in 2026: the metrics funds check

For B2B software the bar is public. CRV, a San Francisco venture firm that invests at seed and Series A, wrote in March 2026 that a competitive Series A ‘generally starts at $2 million to $5 million in ARR’, meaning annual recurring revenue. On net revenue retention, what last year’s customers pay you this year, it calls 100% the baseline, 110% to 120% competitive and 120% or more premium.

Growth alone won’t carry you. ‘If you haven’t yet proven the model, you’re not Series A ready regardless of your growth rate,’ CRV writes. Proof means unit economics: CAC, LTV and payback that hold customer by customer. Coming from seed? Compare them with the metrics investors wanted at pre-seed and seed.

Then the team. The most common gap CRV sees before a Series A is ‘founder-dependent sales and distribution’. It wants a head of sales who closes deals without the founders in the room, and a technical leader.

One Italian data point: Subbyx, founded in February 2024, reached €12 million of ARR within 24 months and had positive EBITDA from the third quarter of 2025, before its Series A. Not a template. But a number any fund could check.

Stage	Typical round size	What investors expect	Source
Seed, Europe	Median deal €2.0M at a €6.0M pre-money valuation (Q1 2026)	Enough proof to raise again: Dealroom counts about $2.5M to $3M raised in total before a Series A	PitchBook via Crowdfund Insider; Dealroom
Series A, Italy	€448M across 50 rounds in 2025, about €9M on average; 2026 rounds from €3M to €30M	Recent cases: €12M ARR within 24 months (Subbyx), revenue up almost tenfold in three years (Datapizza)	Growth Capital and Italian Tech Alliance; tech.eu; Forbes Italia; Teleborsa
Series A, Europe	About $10M median; Series A and B together €17.0M at €44.2M pre-money (Q1 2026)	A proven model; who led your seed shifts the odds of getting there	Dealroom; PitchBook via Crowdfund Insider
Series A, US	Median $14.7M raised at $76.3M post-money (Q2 2026)	B2B SaaS: ARR from $2M to $5M, net revenue retention of 110% to 120%, sales that don’t depend on the founders	Carta; CRV

Seed to Series A timeline: how long, and how many make it

Plan on two years. Carta says ‘the typical period between seed and Series A stands at an even two years’ for US startups (Q1 2026). Dealroom’s European median is about 24 months, and late reporting probably hides six more months at the long end.

Fewer companies make it than founders expect. Dealroom followed 3,075 European startups seeded between 2016 and 2018: 18% had a Series A within 24 months, 27% within 36 and 31% within 48. The seed investor mattered. Startups backed by the top 5% of seed investors converted at about 63%; those backed by the bottom quarter, at 14%.

We found no Italian Series A cohort study, but Growth Capital tracked every company that raised pre-seed or seed from 2020 on. Of the 2020 cohort, 62% completed a second round; of 2023, 38%, partly because less time has passed. In the 2022 and 2023 cohorts, bridges and same-stage rounds outnumber step-ups: companies ‘increasingly raise to extend runway rather than to progress’.

Seed closed in spring 2025? Then a Series A in spring 2027 is on schedule. Does your cash reach that far?

Who leads Series A rounds in Italy?

The lead investor sets price and terms, and the rest of the round follows. Leads named in recent Italian deal news:

• Nextalia Ventures, the fund of Nextalia Investment Management: Datapizza’s €10 million Series A, July 2026.
• Systemiq Capital led the equity side of Subbyx’s €30 million Series A in March 2026; Azimut, already a shareholder, stayed in and Flashpoint added a venture debt line.
• Three funds, XGEN Venture, Sofinnova Partners and CDP Venture Capital, led the €83.5 million first close of the Series A of NanoPhoria, a Milan biotech, in October 2025.
• Partech led Smartness’s €13 million Series A at the end of 2023. In 2026 United Ventures and CDP Venture Capital led its Series B.

Some rounds name no lead. Tundr’s €11.6 million Series A, in September 2026, brought in CDP Venture Capital, while seed investors 360 Capital and Azimut followed on.

Count the foreign names. In 2025 every Italian round above €20 million had at least one investor from abroad. Build your list across Europe, starting from our map of venture capital in Italy and who invests. Family offices show up too, usually beside a fund rather than leading: here’s how family offices in Italy invest in startups.

How to raise a Series A: a six-to-nine-month plan

Work backwards from the day the money lands. Gianni & Origoni’s lawyers, in Chambers’ 2026 guide to Italy, say a round bringing in new lead investors ‘typically spans three to six months’: talks, term sheet, due diligence, then binding agreements, often before a notary in an srl. Add preparation and you’re at six to nine months.

1. Nine to seven months out: the numbers. Start with ARR and how fast it grows. Add retention and gross margin, then burn and runway. Report all six every month from now on, and rebuild the earlier months by cohort.
2. Eight to six months out: the data room. Cap table, articles, shareholders’ agreements, key contracts, IP, accounts. Our guide to startup due diligence from seed to Series A lists what funds check.
3. Seven to five months out: the story. What does this round pay for, and which milestones lead to a Series B? Check how you’ll be priced against SaaS valuation multiples.
4. Six to four months out: the list. Funds that led a Series A in your sector lately, a partner at each, a warm route in. In High Alpha’s 2026 data, half of SaaS founders met 11 to 50 investors.
5. Five to three months out: relationships. Short quarterly updates to every fund on the list, so your numbers have a history when you ask.
6. Last three months: the process. Bunch first meetings into a few weeks and track each fund in an investor pipeline run like a sales funnel. Diligence after the term sheet ‘can extend across multiple weeks’, CRV warns.

An Italian shortcut: Italian Tech Alliance publishes a free model Series A term sheet, drafted with Growth Capital and the law firm Portolano Cavallo. Read it before the first offer. Chambers adds that non-participating 1x liquidation preferences are now the Italian standard.

Most steps of the plan above end in a file. For €149, our Investor-Ready Kit gives you five to start from: a deck template, a runway model, a cap table simulator, a data room checklist and a set of investor emails.

Why Series A raises stall

The sources point to four causes. Sales that still hang on the founders. A model not yet proven, however fast the growth. A seed price the numbers can’t justify: Growth Capital describes Italy’s 2022 cohort as ‘struggling to justify a step-up on previous valuations’. And time, because a seed that buys 18 months of runway doesn’t cover a two-year road.

Watch your cohorts. ‘If your cohort curves decline, fixing that before you raise can do more for your valuation than adding new logos,’ CRV writes.

Checklist: before you start your Series A

1. Start with 9 to 12 months of cash left, as High Alpha suggests.
2. ARR, growth and retention come from one source, by month and by cohort.
3. Someone other than the founders closes sales.
4. You can name the milestones this round pays for, with dates.
5. Data room complete, cap table clean.
6. A list of funds that led a Series A in your sector recently, each with a warm route in.
7. You’ve read Italian Tech Alliance’s model term sheet.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or investment advice. Market data moves every quarter: check the latest reports, and have a lawyer read any term sheet before you sign.