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The Week in Italian StartupAuthor: Giacomo Mollo Language: en Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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Why Bending Spoons bought Tractive? #199
Wednesday, 8 April, 2026
Bending Spoons acquires Tractive, an Austrian GPS pet tracker with €100M+ ARR, breaking its software-only acquisition playbook for the first time with a hardware-subscription hybrid. The episode unpacks why a company that built an $11B valuation buying declining digital products like Evernote, Vimeo, and AOL paid a premium for a profitable, fast-growing hardware business. Tractive's co-founders came from Runtastic, the fitness app sold to Adidas for €220M, making this their second major exit using the same sensor-plus-subscription model in a different vertical. The hosts explore how Tractive's 900,000 paying subscribers generate a proprietary pet health and movement dataset that could unlock AI-driven veterinary intelligence and pet insurance products. In Italian startup news, Wearable Robotics — a Sant'Anna di Pisa spinoff building rehabilitation exoskeletons — closed a €5M Series A led by CDP Venture Capital, targeting a market where traditional therapy only recovers 10% of stroke patients. Capsule Corporation raised €800K to develop water-based propulsion systems for small satellites, positioning Italy as a hub for specialized space-tech engineering. The episode closes with a shoutout to Depthfirst, a cybersecurity startup with an Italian CTO from Google DeepMind, which raised $80M in a Series B less than 90 days after emerging from stealth.Niccolò's newsletter: http://dealflowit.niccolosanarico.com/Watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@giacomomolloListen to all episodes on audio:Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3fVynsQGoogle Podcast: https://bit.ly/3thf9RCApple Podcast: https://apple.co/3ElhykqAmazon Music: https://shorturl.at/9Dtd9Get in touch:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/giacxxxTwitter: https://twitter.com/giacomomolloEmail: giacomo@in3.ventures#venturecapital #italy #startup
