Skillvue, a start-up developing a platform that uses AI to analyse skills and enhance human capital, reports that it has closed a EUR 5.5 million seed round led by 360 Capital.
Italian Founders Fund and 14Peaks Capital, which had led the round closed by the start-up last year, are participating in the round. In detail, Italian Founders Fund and 14Peaks Capital intervened by exercising the pro-rata right, the clause that grants an investor the right to participate in one or more future funding rounds in order to keep its stake in the company unchanged, while Orbita Verticale made a co-investment.
Established in Milan in 2021, Skillvue aims to be a strategic partner for companies in mapping and assessing competences, both in the selection phase and in talent management activities in general, in a context where choosing the right talents and enhancing people’s skills represent a crucial challenge for companies. The platform, based on proprietary AI models that are constantly being developed and evolving towards true skill assessment agents (advanced AI models aimed at supporting HR in an increasingly innovative and customised management of skill assessments), eliminates some of the historical problems of traditional assessments that have always prevented their extensive use on candidates and the entire corporate population, and guarantees sustainable costs, fast results and complete scalability. It is not just a matter of resource optimisation: the skill-based approach promoted by Skillvue increases by up to five times the ability to predict what a person’s actual job performance will be and is strategic for optimising the quality of recruitment, where the traditional CV is less and less representative of a person’s real skills. As far as internal processes are concerned, Skillvue offers companies an all-round competence assessment solution for managing internal mobility and the career and development paths of existing employees.
Skillvue was born thanks to an initial financing of EUR 330,000 from a number of business angels and in 2024 closed a EUR 2.5 million pre-seed with IFF, 14Peaks, Kfund, Orbita Verticale and Ithaca 3, the investment vehicle of Luigi Berlusconi. Sums that, with the round just closed, bring the total funding to a total of over eight million euros. The company’s turnover grew by 700% between 2023 and 2024. The team, which operates from locations in Italy, Germany and Canada, has almost doubled since the pre-seed round of 2024 and will reach 30 by the end of 2025.
Following the pre-seed round, Skillvue created a psychometric team led by researcher Tony Lee to further refine its assessment model and worked on AI Agent models to provide companies with an even more personalised assessment experience. It also strengthened its sales, development and customer success areas, with dedicated people scientists to follow each customer.
The solution developed by Skillvue is part of a complex scenario, which has made it increasingly important for companies to find a single reference partner for the effective and objective assessment and evaluation of skills. In fact, according to a study by the World Economic Forum, it is predicted that 59% of the world’s population will need to update or retrain their skills by 2030, and the ability to carry out a correct assessment of skills will therefore be crucial for upskilling or reskilling initiatives. In addition, according to research conducted by SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management, the world’s largest human resource association), finding workers with specific and appropriate skills is high on the priority list for 70% of respondents. This is why 35% plan to use tests or assessments in pre-screening to identify qualified candidates, and 28% consider relaxing education and degree requirements, moving away from the importance of education and job title in favour of a skills-only approach. The need for this skill-based transformation is also confirmed by research by the Politecnico di Milano, according to which in 2024 in Italy only 35% of companies were able to identify and unlock hidden talent within their organisation, a problem that could easily be solved by adopting a skills-based approach, which should be dynamically matched to specific tasks or projects instead of fixed roles, as has usually been the case so far.
“We have decided to harness the power of artificial intelligence to put skills back at the heart of workforce management, transforming the way companies identify, select and grow people,” explains Nicolò Mazzocchi, CEO and co-founder of Skillvue (pictured with Simone Patera), in a note. “Our technology makes the selection process faster and more data-driven, talent management more effective, and HR processes 100 per cent scalable. With this round we are accelerating the development of our skill assessment agents, making each person’s skills and potential clearly visible and fully valued, while ensuring an optimal assessment experience for both HR and end users’.
“The world of work is undergoing a profound transformation: it is increasingly skills, and not titles, that will make the difference,” comments Lucrezia Lucotti, partner at 360 Capital. “Skillvue is driving this transformation, thanks to a unique combination of evolved artificial intelligence and a deep skill-based vision. Today Skillvue is already a strategic ally for companies that want to truly put skills at the heart of growth. We are happy to support Nicolò, Simone and the whole team on this growth path, with the aim of truly enhancing people’s potential”.
“After serving as co-lead in the pre-seed round, we are excited to join Nicolò, Simone and the entire team in this continued crucial phase of growth. In this first year with Skillvue, our priority together with the founders was to strengthen the foundations of the company to prepare us to scale, through targeted hires across various departments and a well-defined strategic plan. We are very pleased with the work done by Nicolò, Simone and the whole team and think that the joining of 360 Capital with their experience and connectivity also in markets outside Italy that are strategic for Skillvue will further strengthen the go-to-market plan – say Lorenzo Franzi, partner at IFF, and Edoardo Ermotti, founder and general partner at 14Peaks Capital – Skillvue’s vision fits perfectly at the intersection of two central evolutions for those who study and build the future of work: the application of AI to HR processes and the transition towards competency-based organisational models. We are convinced that these are not just trends, but structural transformations that will redefine the way companies select, develop and value human capital for decades to come’.
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