# Soource

Aiolum story: https://aiolum.com/story/soource/ · added 2026-11-05 · updated 2026-11-06

**In short.** Soource (AI agents that run supplier scouting, qualification and requests for quotation for company procurement teams, Italy (Bolzano)): Reported 800K ARR (currency not stated), June 2026. Evidence grade D: reported, not verified. Team: 5 co-founders at founding in Bolzano in 2024 (Teleborsa); 17 people in June 2026, after funding rounds in January 2025 and June 2026; 22 people named on the about page in November 2026. Launched June 2025; still running.

AI agents that run supplier scouting, qualification and requests for quotation for company procurement teams · Italy (Bolzano) · AI-native · started small, grew after funding · still running · group: Operations, logistics and trades

- Outcome: Reported 800K ARR (currency not stated), June 2026 (evidence grade of the headline number: D; headline in US dollars: 800000)
- Launch: June 2025; months from launch to the outcome: 12
- Team: 5 co-founders at founding in Bolzano in 2024 (Teleborsa); 17 people in June 2026, after funding rounds in January 2025 and June 2026; 22 people named on the about page in November 2026
- Outside funding: Funded: a round led by 360 Capital's fund 360 Digitaly, closed in January 2025, and a seed round led by Vertis in June 2026; Teleborsa reported 3 million euros for the seed round and more than 5 million euros raised in total since 2025
- Main factor: Experience
- Meters, 1 to 4: evidence strength 1, copyable pattern 1, capital needed 3
- Tags: AI-native, Small team, Funded, Running, B2B, Procurement software

Links:

- Visit soource.com: https://soource.com/

**The product.** Soource is software for the procurement department of a large company, the team that finds suppliers and buys goods and services. It keeps a database of the company's suppliers, enriched with outside data such as certifications, financial reports and ownership, and runs AI agents that search for new suppliers, send questionnaires and requests for quotation by email, follow up, read the answers and compare the quotes. Buyers keep the approvals. A deployment team from Soource maps each customer's processes and sets up the first workflows in four to eight weeks. No prices are published.

**Why it worked.** The founders came from a company that did outsourced purchasing for other firms, so they knew which purchasing tasks were still done by hand in email and spreadsheets. Soource turned those tasks into agent workflows for large companies. One article from the South Summit Madrid 2026 conference reported 800K in annual recurring revenue and 58 enterprise customers, without a currency and without saying who gave the figure.

Evidence grades: A = disclosed by a public company, a filing or a payment processor, or verified by one; B = two or more independent reports agree, or a journalist confirmed it; C = a founder claim that no one else verified; D = reported, not verified: one founder claim or a third-party estimate with no second source; E = no revenue figure found, so the headline is a non-money fact and the other facts carry their own grades; calc = computed on this page from graded facts.

## Summary

Soource sells procurement automation: software that does the routine work of a company's purchasing team, the people who find suppliers, ask them for prices and check their documents. Its core is a supplier database, a list of the company's current and possible suppliers with their certifications, financial reports and other documents, kept up to date from the company's own systems, from the suppliers and from outside data providers. On top of it run AI agents, programs built on language models that carry out a task in several steps, here search for suppliers, send a request for quotation (RFQ, a formal request to a supplier to give a price), send reminders, read the answers and put them side by side. Suppliers answer by email and do not need an account.

Teleborsa, an Italian financial news agency, reported on 17 June 2026 that Soource was founded in 2024 in Bolzano by five people: Maicol Verzotto, an Olympic diver and European diving champion, with Nazareno Mario Ciccarello, Silvia Chiarot, Serena Galli and Luca Taddeo. The company's about page says the idea came in 2023 from the founding team's work at an earlier outsourced-purchasing company. Soource raised a first round in January 2025 and a seed round in June 2026, and the team had 17 people at that time. On the company's account, Soource reached the market a little over a year before June 2026.

The headline figure is grade D. An article by UpNext World Tour on 6 June 2026 about the finalists of the South Summit Madrid start-up conference said that Soource has "800K ARR, 58 enterprise customers". ARR means annual recurring revenue, the yearly value of active subscriptions. The article gives no currency for this figure, although it gives euros or US dollars for other companies, and it does not say whether the figure came from the company. No second source with a revenue figure was found. Because the team grew past ten people after outside funding, this page also shows the company as a team that grew.

## Pricing

Soource plans on 5 November 2026: no prices are published on the company's site (grade C)

| Plan | Per month, billed yearly (US$) | Per month, billed monthly (US$) | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enterprise contract | custom | custom | Discovery workshop, data foundation, AI agents on priority workflows; 4 to 8 weeks to the first live workflow |

The site offers "Try it now", "Book a workshop" and "Request a demo" buttons and no price list. The page data of the home page contains a structured-data offer with price "0" and currency "EUR", which is not a plan. The frequently asked questions say that a dedicated deployment team sets up each customer, so the price is agreed per contract. The row below shows how a customer starts, as the home page describes it.

## How much revenue does Soource make? The numbers, graded

800K in annual recurring revenue (currency not stated) and 58 enterprise customers in June 2026, by one conference article; 17 people and a seed round in the same month

| Fact | Value | Grade | Note | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Annual recurring revenue, June 2026 | 800K, currency not stated | D | UpNext World Tour, 6 June 2026, in its list of South Summit Madrid 2026 standouts: "Soource [AI] A multi-agent platform automating supplier intelligence, compressing weeks of market scouting into days. 800K ARR, 58 enterprise customers." The article states the currency for other companies ("700K euros in revenue", "3.9M USD ARR") but not for Soource, and it does not say who gave the figure. One source; no investor, filing or second article confirms it. The outcome amount stored for this page is 800,000 at face value, not converted. | [1] |
| Revenue per month from that ARR | about 66,667, currency not stated | calc | Calculated: 800,000 / 12 = 66,666.67. | [1] |
| Enterprise customers, June 2026 | 58 | D | Same UpNext World Tour article, same sentence. One source. | [1] |
| Companies using Soource, November 2026 | more than 50 | C | Home page: "50+ Companies already working with Soource". About page: "50+ companies already using Soource". A company statement that agrees in size with the 58 customers of June 2026. | [3, 4] |
| Founders and founding | 5 people, Bolzano, 2024 | C | Teleborsa on Repubblica's finance site, 17 June 2026: "Soource - fondata nel 2024 a Bolzano dall'olimpionico e oro europeo di tuffi Maicol Verzotto, insieme a Nazareno Mario Ciccarello, Silvia Chiarot, Serena Galli e Luca Taddeo" [Soource, founded in 2024 in Bolzano by the Olympian and European diving gold medallist Maicol Verzotto, together with Nazareno Mario Ciccarello, Silvia Chiarot, Serena Galli and Luca Taddeo] (translation). | [2] |
| Founding year on the company's own page | 2024, with the idea from 2023 | C | About page: "2024 the year Soource was founded" and, further down, "Soource was born in 2023 out of the founding team's experience in another company active in outsourced purchasing." The two years differ on the same page. | [4] |
| Roles of the founders, November 2026 | Verzotto CEO, Ciccarello COO; Chiarot CFO, Galli CMO, Taddeo product manager | C | About page. It says Verzotto earlier co-founded and led Functional, a procurement-services company. | [4, 2] |
| Market entry | about mid-2025 | calc | Calculated from Teleborsa, 17 June 2026: "A poco più di un anno dall'ingresso sul mercato" [a little over a year after entering the market] (translation), and Verzotto: "A un anno dal go-to-market" [one year after the go-to-market] (translation). This page uses June 2025 as the launch month. | [2] |
| Time from market entry to the headline figure | 12 months | calc | Calculated: June 2025 to June 2026. | [1, 2] |
| Team, June 2026 | 17 people | C | Teleborsa: "un team di 17 persone che operano nella sede presso il NOI Techpark di Bolzano, prevede di raddoppiare il proprio organico entro la fine del 2027" [a team of 17 people who work at the office in the NOI Techpark in Bolzano; it plans to double its staff by the end of 2027] (translation). | [2] |
| Team, November 2026 | 22 people named | C | About page: two founders shown as leaders and 20 more people under "Our team", including the three other co-founders. The careers page says "6 former startup founders on the team" and lists one open role. A company page may not list everyone. | [4, 5] |
| Seed round, June 2026 | 3 million euros, led by Vertis | C | Teleborsa: "ha chiuso un round di investimento Seed da 3 milioni di euro. L'operazione è stata guidata da Vertis" [closed a seed investment round of 3 million euros. The deal was led by Vertis] (translation), with Tenity, 360 Capital and Club degli Investitori. | [2] |
| Earlier round | led by 360 Capital through the fund 360 Digitaly, closed in January 2025 | C | Teleborsa: "360 Capital - che attraverso il fondo 360 Digitaly aveva guidato il precedente round chiuso a gennaio 2025" (translation: 360 Capital, which through the 360 Digitaly fund had led the previous round, closed in January 2025). The site footer says this investment came under Italy's National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR). No source read gives its amount. | [2, 3] |
| Total raised | more than 5 million euros | C | Teleborsa: "la raccolta complessiva di Soource ha superato i 5 milioni di euro dal 2025" [Soource's total fundraising has passed 5 million euros since 2025] (translation). The site banner: "Soource has raised a total of over €5M". | [2, 3] |
| Customer sectors | pharma, utilities, energy, insurance, food, industry, construction, retail | C | Teleborsa, from the company's note, and the home page: "Trusted by mid-market and enterprise procurement teams in pharma, utilities, retail, construction, food, manufacturing and beyond". No customer is named on the pages read. | [2, 3] |
| One customer case, as the company reports it | 45 suppliers contacted, 71 automated follow-ups, 19 responses analysed, 40 minutes of buyer work | C | Home page case of "a multinational food group", not named. The company says the work took 3.5 to 4 working days by hand before. It also claims savings for the customer; that is a customer outcome, not Soource's revenue. | [3] |
| Time to the first live workflow | 4 to 8 weeks | C | Home page: "4-8 Weeks from workshop to the first live workflow", in four phases: design, data foundation, activation, training and expansion. | [3] |
| Prices | not published | C | No pricing page; the site offers a workshop and a demo. | [3] |
| Conference | finalist at South Summit Madrid 2026, 3 to 5 June 2026 | C | UpNext World Tour lists Soource among the standouts of the 100 finalists. | [1] |

How to read this table: a grade C value is a statement by the company on its own pages or in its press note as a news agency reported it. A grade D value rests on one source that no second source confirms. An "X" value was computed on this page. Quotations in Italian are given in the original, followed by this page's English translation.

## When did Soource launch, and how did it grow? Timeline

From five founders in Bolzano in 2024 to an enterprise procurement platform with 17 people and a seed round in June 2026. Each entry carries its grade.

- **2023** (grade C [4]): By the about page, the idea comes from the founding team's work at an earlier company that did outsourced purchasing for other firms.
- **2024** (grade C [2, 4]): Five people found Soource in Bolzano, Italy, led by Maicol Verzotto as CEO.
- **January 2025** (grade C [2, 3]): A round led by 360 Capital's fund 360 Digitaly closes, under Italy's recovery plan.
- **About mid-2025** (grade calc [2]): Soource goes to market, a little over a year before June 2026 by the company's account.
- **3 to 6 June 2026** (grade D [1]): Soource is a finalist at South Summit Madrid. UpNext World Tour writes on 6 June: "800K ARR, 58 enterprise customers", with no currency stated.
- **17 June 2026** (grade C [2]): Teleborsa reports a seed round led by Vertis, a team of 17 people, and a plan to double the staff by the end of 2027 and expand into other European markets.
- **5 November 2026** (grade C [3, 4]): The home page counts more than 50 companies as users, and the about page names 22 people.

## Why did Soource work?

### Founders who did the work by hand before

The about page says the founding team came from a company that did outsourced purchasing, and that Verzotto co-founded and led Functional, a procurement-services company. They knew which tasks buyers repeat by hand: finding at least five suppliers for a request, sending questionnaires, checking certificates and chasing answers.

### Data first, agents second

The company's FAQ says its difference from other procurement orchestrators is that agents work on "a reliable supplier database built with internal data, information collected from suppliers and verified external data". An agent that sends requests for quotation needs correct supplier contacts and documents; Soource cleans and enriches this data in weeks 3 and 4 of each setup, before the agents start.

### Email, not a new portal

Suppliers do not log in anywhere. The FAQ says Soource works "through the channels suppliers already use — email above all". This removes the usual reason supplier portals fail: suppliers do not want to learn one more system for each customer.

### People keep the decisions

The home page repeats that agents do the operational work while buyers and managers keep approvals and thresholds. For a large company with purchasing rules this is a condition of buying the software.

### Sold to large companies with a setup team

The product is not switched on by the customer alone: a deployment team runs a workshop, builds the data foundation and configures the agents, and customer success staff follow up. The about page lists several sales roles. No source says how most customers were found, so this page records the channel as unknown.

## How it was built

Soource has published little about its technology. These details come from the company's home page and about page (grade C).

- A web application at app.soource.com for the customer's team, with a workflow builder called Soource Studio that combines triggers, agents, actions and human controls ("blocks, not code").
- A supplier database fed by the customer's own data (suppliers, spend, contracts, documents) and by outside data: certifications, financial reports, ownership structures, country risk and market signals. A module called DataLab refreshes supplier data on demand, and Soource Intelligence flags risks for monitoring.
- Agents that send and read emails to suppliers, analyse quotes and update the database; integrations with ERP systems and purchasing platforms where needed.
- Data processed in Europe under the GDPR, with roles and permissions, encryption and audit logs, by the home page's account.
- No source read names the language models or the model providers that the agents use.
- Team in November 2026, by the about page: a CTO, engineers for full-stack, DevOps and UI/UX work, a product manager, and sales and customer success staff.

Sources: [3, 4]

## Who tried this before Soource, and why did they fail?

Four companies in our database of failed startups tried to make buying from suppliers easier with a marketplace, a supply chain platform or a network of people. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.

The failed startups come from our database of dead startups, retold here in our own words; Its entries are AI-assisted summaries of public sources, so they carry no evidence grade.

### Kinnek (2012 to 2020; funding US$25M; cause: Competition)

- Promise: A marketplace that connected small and medium-sized businesses with suppliers, so they could compare prices, products and vendors in one place.
- Why it died: Amazon Business and Alibaba already had large supplier networks, and Kinnek could not attract and keep enough suppliers and buyers.
- Record: 

### Movley (2023 to 2026; funding US$7M; cause: Competition)

- Promise: On-demand inspection and quality control of manufacturers through a network of vetted human inspectors.
- Why it died: By the failed-startup database record, competitors offered automated, AI-based quality control that needed fewer people, and Movley did not change fast enough.
- Record: 

### Zilingo (2015 to 2022; funding US$340M; cause: Ran Out of Cash)

- Promise: A business software platform to digitize the garment supply chain in South and Southeast Asia, with supply chain financing, inventory and manufacturing tools.
- Why it died: Investors found irregular financial reporting in 2022, including merchandise value booked as revenue, and the company collapsed with weak unit economics.
- Record: 

### Stoqo (2017 to 2020; funding US$10M; cause: Unit Economics)

- Promise: A marketplace that connected small Indonesian restaurants directly to food suppliers, with promised savings and next-day delivery.
- Why it died: It held stock, ran warehouses and gave credit to customers, so it needed new money all the time, and the money stopped.
- Record: 

## What changed

Kinnek and Stoqo tried to put buyers and suppliers in a new marketplace, so they had to win both sides at once and, in Stoqo's case, carry stock and credit. Movley sold the work of human inspectors, so each extra job cost an extra person. Zilingo built supply chain software for a whole industry and, by the failed-startup database record, failed on its accounting and its unit economics.

Soource does not ask suppliers to join a marketplace: it writes to them by email and keeps the buyer's own supplier list, so it only has to win the buyer. The repeated work that once needed people, such as contacting suppliers, reminding them and reading their answers, is done by language-model agents, which on this page's reading makes one more request cheap. What has not gone away is the work for each customer: every contract starts with a workshop and a data cleanup by Soource's own staff.

## Can one person copy Soource now?

**Verdict: The method, yes. The company, not alone.**

The method that can be copied is to take a business process that the founders did by hand for clients, here outsourced purchasing, and turn its repeated steps into agent workflows that send and read email. The company itself is not a one-person business: five people founded it, it sells to large companies with a deployment team, and it raised outside money twice. A solo founder could start with a narrower version for one task or one industry.

1. Pick a back-office process that you or your clients already run by hand, with many emails to outside parties and clear rules.
2. Build the data first: the list of the parties, their contacts and documents, kept up to date.
3. Let agents do the sending, reminding and reading, and leave approvals to people.
4. Work through the channel the outside parties already use, such as email, instead of asking them to log in.

**What is still open.** Narrower versions are open: one category of goods, one industry, or smaller companies that cannot pay for a setup project.

## What could go wrong for Soource?

- **What is not verified.** The headline figure, 800K in annual recurring revenue, and the count of 58 enterprise customers rest on one sentence in an UpNext World Tour article by Edwin J. Frondozo, published on 6 June 2026 about the South Summit Madrid finalists. The article gives no currency for this figure and does not say whether Soource gave it. As the company is Italian and reports its funding in euros, the figure may be in euros, but no source says so, and this page does not convert it. The Teleborsa report of 17 June 2026 on the seed round gives no revenue figure. A reader could look for a revenue statement in a later funding announcement, the company's filed accounts in the Italian business register, or an interview with the founders.
- **A team that grew after funding.** Five people founded Soource in 2024, by Teleborsa's report. The team had 17 people in June 2026, the about page named 22 in November 2026, and the company said it plans to double its staff by the end of 2027. Teleborsa reported more than 5 million euros raised since 2025. This is a venture-funded company with a sales team, not a small team today.
- **Software with a setup service.** The FAQ says: "Soource is not simply switched on and handed over. A dedicated deployment team maps your processes, identifies priority workflows, configures AI agents around your operational needs and supports adoption." The product is the software at app.soource.com; the setup work is part of each contract. The sources read do not say how much of the revenue is software and how much is setup.
- **Emails sent by agents.** The agents email suppliers on behalf of the buyer, with reminders (the home page case counts "71 automated follow-ups" to 45 suppliers). These are requests for quotation to businesses, not bulk marketing email. The pages read do not say whether these emails tell the supplier that an AI agent wrote them.
- **Claims on the site that this page could not check.** The home page case study of an unnamed food group, with its time and cost savings, is the company's own account and says "Results may vary". The "In the press" section shows outlet logos; links to Corriere della Sera, Forbes Italia, StartupItalia and EU-Startups articles are on the page, but those sites block this page's reader, so the articles were not read.
- **Competition and model providers.** Like Ahron on this site, which runs HR processes with agents for large companies, Soource sells enterprise process agents with a setup team, and its own FAQ places it among other procurement orchestrators. No source read names the language models or the model providers behind the agents, so the dependence on a provider and its prices could not be checked.

## Sources

1. UpNext World Tour, 6 June 2026, by Edwin J. Frondozo: South Summit Madrid 2026: Mitiga Solutions Wins, Plus the Standouts — https://upnext.world/south-summit-madrid-2026-mitiga-solutions-wins-plus-the-standouts/ (grade D). Read in full on 5 November 2026. The only source for the 800K ARR figure and the 58 enterprise customers; it states no currency for them.
2. Teleborsa on Repubblica Economia e Finanza, 17 June 2026: Soource, round di investimento Seed da 3 milioni di euro guidato da Vertis — https://finanza.repubblica.it/mobile/News/2026/06/17/soource_round_di_investimento_seed_da_3_milioni_di_euro_guidato_da_vertis-69/ (grade C). Read in full in Italian on 5 November 2026; quotations are translated on this page. Based on the company's press note. Source for the founders, the founding year, the funding rounds, the team of 17 and the market entry.
3. Soource home page, read 5 November 2026 — https://soource.com/ (grade C). Read in full, including the FAQ answers in the page data. Source for the product, the setup phases, the customer case, the user count and the funding banner.
4. Soource about page: The people behind Soource — https://soource.com/about-us (grade C). Read in full on 5 November 2026. Source for the founding story, the founders' roles and the team list.
5. Soource careers page — https://soource.com/careers (grade C). Read in full on 5 November 2026. Source for the count of former founders on the team and the open role.
6. Database of failed startups, local export — /method/#dead (grade C). Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors.

Contact: aiolum@livyden.com. Run Soource? Send corrections or a verified figure to aiolum@livyden.com (subject: Correction: Soource).