JustSolve, a Milan-based startup building autonomous AI agents for debt collection and credit management, said Monday it secured €3.7 million ($4.3 million) in a pre-seed round led by Base10 Partners. The financing included €3.0 million in equity and €0.7 million in grants, with backing from Entourage, 2100 Ventures, Vento and Ithaca Investments, the family office of Luigi Berlusconi.
The round also drew angel investors with domain expertise in the space: Marco Ogliengo from JetHR, Tim Collins, who previously served as general counsel at InDebted, and Joe Zadeh, a former vice president of product at Airbnb. Their participation suggests confidence in what remains a relatively untested market in Europe, where AI-driven collections platforms lag behind more mature counterparts in Australia and the United States.
Founded in 2023 by Alberta Trombetta and Francesco Manicardi, JustSolve targets European fintechs grappling with the operational burden of recovering overdue payments. The platform processed more than 2 million claims and conducted roughly 1,000 debtor conversations daily as of mid-2024, according to company disclosures. Customers listed on its LinkedIn page include buy-now-pay-later provider Scalapay, along with Qomodo and Subbyx. Vento, one of the investors, wrote in September that those clients have seen recovery rates double in some cases, though these outcomes have not been independently verified.
Trombetta, who spent seven years in litigation and commercial law, teamed up with Manicardi, an ex-Palantir engineer, through Vento's Reef venture-building program in Turin. The program runs for five months and is backed by Exor. The founders initially set out to tackle legal disputes and arbitration. Market feedback steered them toward debt recovery instead. Trombetta acknowledged the shift in a LinkedIn post in September.
"Raising the funds was easy," Trombetta told Tech Funding News on September 16. "We received offers three to three-and-a-half times higher than the amount we ultimately decided to accept." Whether that level of investor enthusiasm proves warranted will depend on how quickly the company can scale beyond its current client base.
Autonomous Agents Across Channels
JustSolve describes its product as "agentic AI," software that autonomously manages email, SMS, WhatsApp, phone calls and postal mail without human intervention. In Italy, the platform integrates with PEC, the country's certified email system that carries legal weight equivalent to registered letters, according to AgID, the government's digital administration agency. That integration allows JustSolve to issue formal notices with legal standing, a capability that could complicate expansion into other European jurisdictions with different regulatory frameworks.
The AI agents negotiate payment plans, send formal notices and escalate cases to legal teams when collection efforts stall. The company has posted strong quarter-over-quarter growth without increasing operating costs, though specific metrics were not disclosed.
JustSolve listed between two and 10 employees on LinkedIn as of mid-September. The startup said it plans to expand to roughly 20 positions across sales, engineering, product, marketing and operations. Its offices are located on Corso Giuseppe Garibaldi in Milan's historic center.
Crowded Field, Different Markets
The debt collection technology market has attracted substantial capital in recent years, particularly in markets where regulatory environments allow for aggressive automation. Australian startup InDebted raised a Series C in September 2024 at a roughly $250 million valuation, according to CB Insights. TrueAccord in the U.S. joined Visa's Fintech Partner Connect program in March 2024. In Europe, Germany's collectAI was acquired by Aareal Bank in 2022, and receeve operates an enterprise receivables platform.
Base10 Partners, which also backs Nubank, Brex and Instacart, appears to be betting that European fintech growth will generate enough delinquent debt to support a new generation of collection tools. Adeyemi Ajao, co-founder and managing partner at Base10, said in a statement: "It is rare to come across founders who have a deep understanding of a workflow and are willing to rebuild it from the ground up using AI."
What remains unclear is how regulators will respond as AI agents take on more direct debtor communication, particularly in markets with strict consumer protection laws. JustSolve's headcount and funding suggest ambitions beyond Italy, but scaling across European jurisdictions could require navigating a patchwork of compliance regimes that vary significantly by country.
For now, the company appears focused on proving the model works in its home market. Whether that's enough to justify the valuation investors assigned remains an open question.
