[Funding alert] Perugia-based Fintech Startup Cents Secures €1.15 Million in Pre-Seed Funding

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The funds will be utilised to enhance a B2B (and B2B2C) service that enables businesses easily integrate social and environmental issues into their core business by connecting them with over 50 non-profit organisations, as well as to create the first Impact-as-a-ServiceTM (IAAS) platform in Europe.

Riccardo Valobra and Alessio Mazzalupi, Co-Founders, commented: “Cents stems from a clear idea: connecting companies and brands with third sector NGOs, so as to empower people to be agents of positive change in the world, even in their everyday lives. This is the starting point of our Vision: the aim to create an integrated digital ecosystem that generates impact through every single digital transaction, everywhere in the world. Today, thanks to the support of some of the biggest players on the Italian financial scene, we are in the ideal moment to pursue these goals. The growing attention of European consumers in assessing the impact of their purchases and the need for large companies to respond to this evolution in order to attract, engage and retain their customers, opens up promising avenues for rapid growth and expansion.”

Therefore, Cents' mission is to make these realities possible through digital transaction systems, easy integration of sustainability, social impact, and corporate social responsibility (CSR) with a responsible development of their ESG, converting sales into vehicles for good deeds, boosting community involvement and customer retention, and encouraging millions of people in Italy and throughout Europe to make a daily difference in the world.

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The funds raised will also enable the appointment of young, skilled managers, as well as the growth and consolidation of the internal team. With the goal of acquiring strategic partners in Italy and attaining significant metrics to close a Seed Round in less than 24 months, the objective is to rapidly develop the workforce between now and 2025 in order to establish the platform as a benchmark across Europe.

Claudio Cardinale, Co-Founder and CTO, commented: “At Cents we are developing the entire platform framework from scratch, starting with the collection of big data, and then processing it through an artificial intelligence engine based on our in-house machine learning model. With our software we want to enable business partners to simplify back-office operations, donation processing and technical integrations with non-profit organisations and their projects, while optimising the ‘matching’ between donor and cause. All implemented on a cloud platform with serverless architecture, to guarantee scalability and flexibility even at a geographical level."

About Cents

Cents is an innovative fintech startup founded in April 2021 by Alessio Mazzalupi and Riccardo Valobra. The company's objective is to redefine how corporate governance dynamics approach issues of responsibility and impact, both social and environmental, by making ESG frameworks and CSR practices instantly accessible, traceable, and accountable for e-commerce, banks, credit unions, and financial institutions.

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