Custodea raises €350K to help European SMEs take control of their business data

Custodea is a European AI data platform helping SMEs centralise and manage their business information, has raised €350,000 in seed funding from investors within its network.

The company aims to solve the problem of fragmented business data spread across accounting, customer management, HR and other software systems. Many SMEs still depend on manual exports, spreadsheets and input from different teams to access up-to-date information, making it difficult to maintain a clear overview of their operations.

Custodea brings together data from dozens of business systems, including Exact Online, HubSpot and Personio, in a private data environment. The platform continuously synchronises this information, allowing businesses to access current data without relying on manual exports or complicated migrations.

Companies can connect their data to tools such as Excel, Power BI, Looker, Tableau and dbt. They can also use it to power AI models and agents. In addition, Custodea offers an AI assistant that can answer questions and analyse business information, including revenue trends and outstanding invoices.

According to Gregory Aerts, co-founder of Custodea, the growing adoption of AI is increasing the need for businesses to maintain greater control over their data and use it more effectively.

With Custodea, I want to help close the technology gap between large corporations – with large budgets and dedicated data teams – and SMEs. Data is power, and with Custodea, we are putting that power into the hands of SMEs: data they fully own, stored and managed within the EU and ready to power AI. We are launching SMEs into the AI era,

said Aerts.

Custodea’s platform is designed to give businesses greater control over how their data is stored and accessed. All connections are read-only by default, while customers can decide who has access to their information and revoke permissions at any time.

The company’s infrastructure is hosted entirely within the European Union. Custodea aims to offer SMEs an EU-based alternative that allows them to maintain control over their business data while continuing to use their existing software. European cloud providers currently account for a relatively small share of the region’s cloud market, with many businesses relying on software supported by US-based cloud infrastructure.

The new funding will support Custodea’s platform launch and help the company expand its services across European markets.