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Barcelona's Artiso raised over €3M in pre-seed funding led by Criteria Venture Tech to build an AI operating system for fashion design and production teams.
Key Takeaways
- Artiso raised more than €3M in a pre-seed round led by Criteria Venture Tech, announced October 2026.
- Swanlaab Venture Factory, Bynd Venture Capital and two angels joined; valuation is undisclosed.
- The three founders are all ex-Mango staff who worked together on its first AI-generated campaign.
Lead
Artiso, a Barcelona fashion-tech startup, has raised more than €3 million in a fully equity pre-seed round to build what it calls an AI operating system for fashion teams. Criteria Venture Tech led the financing, which the company announced in October 2026. One trade outlet puts the total at €3.34 million. The company has not disclosed a valuation.
Who Backed Artiso?
Criteria Venture Tech led the round, and it has backed Artiso since the company emerged from stealth. Two Spanish funds, Swanlaab Venture Factory and Bynd Venture Capital, also invested.
Two business angels completed the cap table. David Tomás, co-founder of Cyberclick, invested personally. Nicolaj Reffstrup, founder and former CEO of GANNI, invested through Look Up Ventures.
The angel list matters more than the fund names. A founder of a Copenhagen fashion brand writing a cheque is a signal about buyer interest, which is the thing pre-seed software companies in this category struggle to prove.
What Does Artiso Actually Build?
Artiso sells a visual workspace that links the stages of a collection, from inspiration and design through product development and pre-production. The company lists tech packs, styling, on-model imagery and campaign visuals among the outputs. It builds these on a "brand memory", an archive of each client's past work.
The intended users are creative directors, designers, pattern makers and merchandisers. Artiso says people keep control over decisions and outputs. It also describes the platform as agentic, meaning the software can carry out multi-step tasks instead of answering single prompts.
The company makes specific performance claims. It says the platform can cut product development time by up to 70%, make concept-to-campaign work five times faster and reduce the cost of commercial visual assets by up to 90%. These are the company's own figures, and no independent customer data accompanied the announcement.
Who Are the Founders?
Sarah Iglesias Hiller is CEO, Matthias Brenninkmeijer is CTO and Lucas Pastur Romay is CPO. All three previously worked at Mango, where they were part of the team behind the retailer's first AI-generated campaign. Iglesias Hiller also has Inditex in her background. Brenninkmeijer came from C&A, and Pastur Romay from Grifols.
They founded Artiso in 2025 and have worked together since 2022. The team now includes specialists in pattern making, design, art direction, motion graphics and data science. Headcount is undisclosed.
Is This Round Large for a Pre-Seed?
A round above €3 million is large for a European pre-seed, where cheques have traditionally run well below that. The size reflects the founders' track record at a large retailer and a product already in use, not a deck alone.
Artiso says it serves mid-sized brands, large fashion groups and luxury houses across Europe, Asia and North America. It names the United States as a key market. It has not named customers, contract values or revenue, so the traction behind the round cannot be checked.
What Will the Money Fund?
The company plans to use the capital in three ways: accelerating development of the operating system, supporting enterprise rollouts at client organisations and hiring fashion and technology talent. Enterprise integration is the costly part. Selling to large fashion groups means long procurement cycles and workflow changes that a design tool alone does not solve.
Strategic Context
Artiso enters a crowded field. Established product lifecycle management vendors already hold the tech-pack and production records at large brands. Generative image tools have lowered the cost of campaign visuals for anyone with a subscription. Artiso's pitch is that connecting both, with a brand's own history as the base, is a different product from either.
That claim carries the risk. Incumbents can add generative features to existing systems. Standalone image tools can add workflow. Artiso must show that clients will move design and production data into a new system, rather than treating it as another point tool.
Outlook
Artiso has raised a sizeable pre-seed round, backed by a lead investor with an existing relationship and a recognisable fashion angel. The numbers that would test its thesis remain unpublished: customer names, revenue and valuation. The next milestone is likely a seed round, which would depend on converting enterprise pilots in Europe and the US into paid contracts, and on whether the efficiency figures survive scrutiny from customers.
