Circeus, Shop Circle Parent, Secures EBRD Funding for AI-Led M&A

A Repeatable Acquisition Engine With AI at the Core

Circeus grows through a repeatable model: selectively acquiring software businesses and connecting them to a central AI capability. Agents and skills are built once and deployed across the portfolio. After an acquisition, Circeus embeds AI into products, automates operations, and reuses infrastructure, data, and insights across the group.

Each improvement compounds, creating a structural advantage that standalone software businesses would find difficult to match. AI is not a layer added on top of each product, Circeus said. It is the operating system of the group, moving software from systems of record to systems of action.

Founders who sell to Circeus keep their brands, teams, and customer relationships. The group provides AI engineering, growth expertise, and centralised back-office support.

“As AI evolves software from passive tools into systems that act and execute, the addressable market for technology is expanding several-fold,” said Luca Cartechini, Founder and CEO of Circeus. He said the company was not running a fundraising process but chose to make space for EBRD given its institutional standing.