We built Liqi to change how Italian businesses manage money.
UniCredit agreed.
Liqi was founded in 2022 to give small and medium businesses fast, digital access to working capital. Three years later, it became part of UniCredit and is now being deployed to hundreds of thousands of Italian companies.
Read the storyThe Story
Born at VENTO
We joined Vento, the startup accelerator founded by Exor, as one of the first teams in its inaugural batch. With backgrounds in finance and operations, they arrived with a clear conviction: Italian SMEs were starved of liquidity, and the tools available to them were slow, opaque, and analog.
Liqi was born to fix that. The name says it all: Liqi as "liquidity"..
Read the article — Repubblica
Working Capital, Reinvented
The first version of Liqi was a working capital financing tool that let SMEs split supplier invoices into multiple installments. 100% digitally, in minutes. Something that previously required bank appointments, guarantees, and weeks of waiting.
The market response was clear: the demand was real, and it extended well beyond Italy. We saw interest from SMEs in Spain, Portugal, and Greece too.
Software That Banks Can Embed
As interest rates rose and early-stage credit startups fell out of favor with investors, we asked a harder question: where does the real, durable value sit?
The answer was in the software layer — not the credit itself. We rebuilt Liqi as an embeddable Business Financial Management platform: tools that let a bank offer its SME clients a complete financial dashboard, integrated directly into their everyday banking experience.
UniCredit Acquires Liqi
UniCredit had been part of Liqi's journey from the beginning as an investor in our pre-seed round, alongside Vento Ventures and a group of business angels.
In March 2025, UniCredit acquired Liqi's software. Embedding financial management tools directly into the bank's SME offering was not just a product improvement, it was a strategic shift in how a bank builds relationships with businesses. We joined UniCredit to lead the integration from within.
From Startup to 500,000+ Businesses
Liqi is now being integrated into UniCredit's ecosystem for Italian SMEs with a potential reach of over 500,000 businesses across the country.
The product we built for a handful of early adopters is becoming infrastructure for one of Europe's largest banking groups. The founding team operates from within UniCredit's CEO office, ensuring the vision survives the integration.
Stay Tuned
We're builders. The work we're doing inside UniCredit is meaningful and we're fully committed to it.
But if you know us, you know this probably won't be the last thing we build. Keep an eye on us.
The founders
The people behind it.
Danilo Santorsola
Co-Founder
Strategy, business development, and the obsession with making financial tools actually useful for the people who run businesses.
LinkedIn
Antonino Del Giorno
Co-Founder
Operations, partnerships, and the relentless execution that turns an idea into something real.
LinkedIn
Andrea Ortu
Co-Founder
Data architecture and the technical foundation that made Liqi's intelligence possible.
LinkedInLiqi's early technical infrastructure was shaped by a broader founding team. Their work laid the foundation for everything that followed. Thank you Silvio, Alexandru, Andrea, Alejandro, Paolo, Enrico, Abhishek.
What's next
This is not the end.
Liqi was our first company. UniCredit is where it found its scale.
If you want to follow what we do next or if you just want to have a talk, we're here.
Contact
Say hello.
Whether you're a founder, investor, journalist, or just curious: we'd love to hear from you, feel free to contact us.