Casavo and Italian proptech: fast growth, hard market and strategic pivot

Is instant buying in the Italian real estate market really sustainable? An analysis of Casavo's business model between lights and shadows.

The case of Casavo and Italian proptech: fast growth, hard market and strategic pivot comes at a particular moment for the Italian startup ecosystem. After the boom years of 2020-2022, when liquidity seemed infinite and valuations grew at double digits every quarter, the market is going through a necessary normalisation phase. The founders we talk to every week describe a more sober reality, where unit economics are once again central, runways are measured in months not years, and hires are postponed or revised downwards. It is in this context that the Casavo case takes on a meaning that goes beyond a single story.

The context: what is changing in the Italian market

The Venture Capital Monitor data published in recent months describes an Italy that is growing in a more mature way. The total number of deals is slightly down, but the average value per deal is up. International investors continue to look at our country with interest, especially in specific verticals such as fintech, insurtech, deep tech and agrifood. At the same time, the average time to close a round has lengthened, and due diligences have become deeper. Founders raising capital today must be able to tell not only a vision, but also a credible path to profitability.

This new phase is not necessarily bad. Many operators we spoke to actually consider it healthy. During the boom years, says a partner at a leading Italian fund who prefers to remain anonymous, projects were funded that would hardly have survived a stricter filter. Today the market is recalibrating expectations, and this should lead in the medium term to a more solid ecosystem, with companies able to grow without burning cash unsustainably.

The numbers that matter

When talking about Italian startups it is easy to get lost in meaningless metrics. The number of employees, the valuation, the total raised are often overrated indicators. What really matters, especially in this phase of the cycle, is the ratio between recurring revenue and operating costs, the actual runway length, the organic growth rate net of paid marketing effects. These are numbers that rarely make it into press releases, but that the most careful investors ask for first.

The companies growing sustainably today are the ones that have found a balance between market ambition and financial discipline. It is a difficult balance, and you pay quickly when it breaks.

Another often underestimated element is the quality of the board. The successful Italian startups we have followed in recent years almost always have a balanced board, with at least one experienced investor, an industry advisor and an independent capable of bringing an external perspective. When the board works, difficult decisions — a pivot, a restructuring, a down round — are taken earlier and executed better. When the board does not work, even the most promising companies risk wasting their chances.

What the players say

We collected the opinions of about ten ecosystem operators, including founders, fund partners, advisors and accelerator managers, to understand how they are reading the moment. The answers were surprisingly convergent on some points, and divergent on others. Everyone recognises that we are in a transition phase and that some of the business models that grew in recent years need to be rethought. More divided is the judgement on the role of the public sector: some think CDP Venture Capital is playing its anchor function well, while others believe too many public resources are arriving in a poorly selective way.

On the talent topic, there is broad convergence. Finding senior profiles with international experience remains the main challenge for Italian startups, especially in product, engineering and go-to-market roles. The brain return, often invoked, is happening but still insufficient compared to the system's real needs. Salaries have grown, but a structural gap remains compared to more mature European centres like London, Berlin and Paris.

The scenario for the coming months

Looking ahead, it is reasonable to expect a stabilisation of the market around current levels, with possible positive surprises in some specific verticals. Generative artificial intelligence will continue to attract significant capital, although the selection between serious projects and opportunistic positioning will become stricter. Fintech, after the difficult years 2022-2023, is showing signs of recovery, especially in the enterprise. Italian insurtech remains an underdeveloped market compared to its potential, and could see interesting movements.

On the exit front, attention remains focused on possible IPOs of some mature scaleups and on M&A movements that could involve Italian players as acquirers or targets. For founders at the start of the journey, the main message that emerges from our conversations is one: building solid, focused companies, able to demonstrate real value to customers, is today more important than chasing record valuations. A lesson that, after all, applies to every season of the market.

Further reading

For those who want to continue reading on the topics covered in this article, we point out a related deep dive that broadens many of the points introduced here, with updated data and new interviews from the field.

Read also: Talent Garden: from Brescia to the European coworking network for innovators

We will continue to follow the evolution of this topic in the coming months, with interviews, quantitative analyses and case studies. If you are a founder, an investor or an ecosystem operator and you want to tell us your perspective, write to the newsroom: we read every message.

Written by

Marco De Luca

Financial analyst with a background in venture capital. He follows funding rounds in the Italian market and writes about fundraising, valuations and growth strategies.