Mistral Backs This Italian Startup to Break Europe's Cloud Dependence

Jan de Vries · 2026-09-24

Clastix, a Naples-based company making it easier for enterprises to run Kubernetes at scale, just raised €2.9 million (about $3.1 million) in its first external funding round. The Seed round was led by CDP Venture Capital Sgr, with participation from Mistral and Vertis SGR through its Vertis Venture 6 Digital Sud fund, which is partially financed by the European Union's Next-Generation EU program. ### Why This Round Matters This isn't just another funding announcement. It's a signal that Europe is getting serious about owning its infrastructure layer, especially as AI workloads explode. Clastix is positioning itself as a European alternative to hyperscaler-dependent infrastructure, giving enterprises hyperscaler-grade Kubernetes operations while keeping control over their own hardware and data. > "The next phase of AI won't be decided by models alone but by who controls the infrastructure layer beneath them." – Adriano Pezzuto, co-founder and CEO of Clastix ### From Open Source to Enterprise Platform Founded in 2020 by Adriano Pezzuto and Dario Tranchitella, both engineers who previously managed Kubernetes deployments inside large enterprises, Clastix started with Capsule, an open-source project that brought native multi-tenancy to Kubernetes. Then came Kamaji, which lets tenant control planes run as pods on shared infrastructure instead of dedicated machines—eliminating what Clastix calls the "control plane tax." They later combined both technologies into a single commercial offering called kMetal, a platform for fleet-scale Kubernetes operations. It's already running in production with infrastructure teams across AI labs, telecom, cloud services, and the public sector. Customers include Fastweb, NVIDIA, and Mistral. ### What the Money Will Do The fresh capital will go toward product development, customer success, solutions engineering, and go-to-market expansion as Clastix scales kMetal. Over the next three years, the company plans to grow its headcount to meet rising demand and serve larger enterprise teams. It also plans to keep investing in Kamaji, its open-source Hosted Control Plane engine, which will remain free under the Apache 2.0 license. ### The Bigger Picture Mistral's backing isn't just financial—it's strategic. Timothée Lacroix, co-founder and CTO of Mistral, said, "Clastix is the backbone of our Kubernetes infrastructure. Their work on multi-tenancy and managed control planes helps us enable our training and inference clusters at scale. By backing Clastix, we're investing in Europe's AI stack. A sovereign AI ecosystem isn't just about models—it's about the infrastructure layer that makes them run." Alessandro Scortecci, Chief Investment Officer for Direct Investments at CDP Venture Capital, added, "We are proud to support a team that combines engineering excellence, market vision, and global ambition. This investment reflects our commitment to backing strategic technologies developed in Italy that can strengthen Europe's technological sovereignty and long-term competitiveness." For U.S. readers watching the EU Inc proposal and European startup incorporation trends, this deal shows how sovereign tech is becoming a real investment theme. It's not just about regulation—it's about building the plumbing that AI and cloud services run on. And that plumbing is increasingly being built in Europe.