Turin, Torino Feb 19, 2026  – NANDO (Re Learn srl), an Italian startup that creates AI-powered waste monitoring solutions, has announced the completion of a 3.3 million capital raise.

The funding round was spearheaded by MAIA Ventures (Praesidium SA) via the Maia I fund, which is part of the EIF InvestEU Fund program, alongside CDP Venture Capital SGR through its Accelerators Fund. The Piemonte Next Fund, created and overseen by CDP Venture Capital and backed by regional finance entity FinPiemonte to boost innovation investments in the area, also took part, together with existing company investors such as Club degli Investitori, La4G, and EMBA Capital Partners.

This capital injection will enable NANDO – which is already utilized by over 80 global companies – to reinforce its market leadership in two primary domains: streamlining municipal waste collection and curbing food waste. The firm plans to broaden its AI capabilities and upgrade its data gathering and analytical infrastructure throughout the complete waste management ecosystem.

Established in 2021 by Riccardo Leonardi, Fabrizio Custorella, Giovanni Lucifora, Federico Fedi, and Simone Cavariani, NANDO has built a platform that combines Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Computer Vision technologies. The startup was nurtured by ZERO, a cleantech accelerator that belongs to CDP Venture Capital’s National Accelerator Network and is operated by Zest and ELIS, with ENI serving as the primary corporate partner among other industry participants.

Currently, NANDO analyzes more than 40,000 waste images each day from locations worldwide – spanning Japan to the United States, through the UAE, Europe, and the UK – and serves over 80 clients. These include major waste generators like corporate offices and industrial facilities, along with waste service providers such as facility management firms and municipal collection operators, plus cafeteria and catering operations. NANDO’s customer roster features ISS, Narita International Tokyo Airport, Samsic Facility Italia, A2A, IREN, Bywaters ltd , IVECO Group, Deloitte, Grosvenor Property UK, Recorra, Capgemini, CBRE, The Howard de Walden Estate.

Through the introduction of detailed real-time data, these organizations can bypass the constraints of conventional manual and intermittent monitoring approaches, thereby digitizing, automating, and refining their waste management workflows. This results in quantifiable savings in time, expenses, and environmental footprint. NANDO’s proprietary system unifies the tracking of various waste categories – from food waste to industrial and municipal refuse – within one integrated solution, presenting all data through a single accessible dashboard. A specialized business division concentrates on minimizing food waste in the collective catering industry, targeting measurable waste reduction while providing concrete advantages in operational expenditure cuts and environmental damage mitigation. In this area, NANDO partners with globally recognized clients like Dussmann.

Riccardo Leonardi, CEO and Co-founder of NANDO, comments:  

“During recent years, we have solidified our standing in the waste management sector, supporting approximately 80 clients in over 17 nations and collaborating with leading global entities. With this latest funding round, we intend to capitalize on the distinctive market prospects within the waste industry. Escalating labor and raw material expenses, combined with staffing scarcities, have rendered waste measurement ever more critical for enhancing operational efficiency in both corporate and municipal contexts. This issue is especially acute in the food service domain, where our newly introduced solution has garnered considerable market attention. The secured funds will permit us to advance our technological development further and establish NANDO as the definitive gateway for waste-related data“.

Stefano Molino, Head of the Acceleratori Fund at CDP Venture Capital, says:  

“We take pride in renewing our confidence in the NANDO team, which exemplifies how technological advancement can create tangible societal benefits by improving waste management, decreasing food waste, and fostering a more circular and sustainable economic framework. The team’s proficiency in digitizing historically inefficient procedures demonstrates this technology’s capacity to catalyze fundamental shifts toward more accountable production and consumption patterns“.

Andrea Galassi, Founding Partner of MAIA Ventures, adds:  

“Our decision to invest in NANDO stems from its ability to tackle – through a scalable tech methodology – the pressing and extensive challenge of quantifying and diminishing waste generation, notably within the agri-food industry, via its proprietary computer vision and AI platform. The team’s skill in converting operational challenges into practical data signifies substantial potential for economic and environmental influence“.

Moving forward, NANDO intends to reinforce its footprint in Europe and the UK while speeding up its expansion into the US and Asian markets. The fresh capital will facilitate team expansion and the creation of new product portfolios focused on tracking various waste categories, positioning data as the central element in strategies for waste minimization, operational enhancement, and supply chain-wide decision-making support.