- Gyver, based in Brescia, closed a €1.4 million pre-seed round led by Brighteye.
- The AI conversational platform digitally replicates the referral process, matching electricians with employers.
- The company will initially focus on Italy, one of Europe’s largest construction and electrical contracting markets
Brescia-based Gyver raised €1.4 million in pre-seed funding to build hiring and workforce infrastructure for Europe’s skilled trades sector, starting with electricians.
The round was led by Brighteye, with participation from āltitude, Vento Ventures, Zanichelli Venture, existing investor Antler, and several business angels.
The company was founded during an Antler residency in autumn 2024, though the initial insight emerged earlier. Co-founders Francesco Defendi, Leo Acciarri, and Mattia Zarrelli previously established a general contracting business for solar installations serving industrial SMEs, where they witnessed skilled labour shortages disrupt projects.
“Europe has 2.7 million electrical workers and a €3 billion hiring market that has been chronically underserved. The electrification of the world, industrial maintenance and ageing demographics are widening the gap between supply and demand faster than traditional tools can handle. Gyver uses AI not to replace skilled electricians but to make each one more productive and more valuable, which is a distinction that matters,” says David Guérin, partner at Brighteye.
Gyver is developing an AI conversational platform that digitally replicates this referral process, matching electricians with employers using trust-based, word-of-mouth dynamics at scale.
The platform’s initial focus is on hiring, but Gyver’s roadmap includes upskilling, learning, and workforce productivity tools. The company aims to provide electricians with modern resources for technical skills such as electrical design and PLC programming.
General job boards such as Indeed and StepStone do not effectively serve blue-collar workers, while trade-specific platforms in Europe are fragmented and mostly predate AI. Gyver aims to become the leading infrastructure provider as the market consolidates.
“We want the job of an electrician to be as cool as being a VC or a famous entrepreneur. Electricians are the most important yet neglected category of workers in the modern economy. They embody the combination of brain and manual craft that cannot be replaced by AI, yet they have been left behind by modern technology. The future of work in the AI age is the future of manual craft,” Defendi says.
The fresh investment will support the development of AI agents and workflows to enhance matching quality and the employer experience. Gyver will initially focus on Italy, one of Europe’s largest construction and electrical contracting markets, before expanding across the EU.
