Rulen (formerly LexSA) raises €1.8 million for its AI platform that turns tax rules into action

Milan, Italy Oct 26, 2026 (Issuewire.com) - Rulen (formerly LexSA), the vertical AI Operating Platform for the tax and accounting sector, today announces its first capital increase, totalling 1.8 million. The round was led by VC Partners, with participation from Growth Engine, AME Ventures, Zest, through the Magic Mind vehicle, and Alpha Venture, alongside a group of industry business angels.

For years, the Italian tax profession has been facing a structural shortage of young professionals. New registrations have dropped by 27.3%, and professionals under 40 now account for only 15% of the category (1). Against this backdrop, law and tax firms, roll-ups of professional practices and companies are finding it increasingly difficult to source the specialist skills needed to handle a growing volume of compliance work, while workflows remain largely manual and fragmented across different systems. In this context, end-to-end automation of tax processes - from data collection to review and document production - and integration with existing software are becoming a competitive lever for firms that want to scale and offer new services without growing their headcount at the same rate.

Rulen was born out of this very problem, which one of its founders experienced first-hand for years. Launched at the end of 2025 and winner of Digithon 2025, the company stood out from its earliest months for the strong vertical focus of its solution and for its founders' background, which combines technological expertise with deep domain knowledge. In just a few months, the product evolved from an assistant into an AI Operating Platform: rather than a chatbot, a platform that executes workflows end to end while preserving control and verifiability for the professional. It is integrated with third-party systems, including the Cassetto Fiscale (the Italian Revenue Agency's online taxpayer records), so that it fits directly into existing workflows.

The vision is to offer professionals in the sector a plug & play solution that enables them to become AI-driven, automate routine tasks and stay competitive, adopting artificial intelligence within their own processes without having to build in-house technology infrastructure and dedicated skills.

The platform is already used by leading law and tax firms, boutiques, roll-ups of professional practices and multinational groups.

The funding round comes with the company's rebrand from LexSA to Rulen - Turning Rules Into Actions. The new name brings together "rules" and execution: it starts from tax rules and turns them into concrete operations, moving beyond the idea of a simple "research assistant" tied to the company's previous positioning. The creative platform "Turning Rules Into Actions" captures this shift: from regulations to context, from action to the professional's control.

In terms of traction, over the past three and a half months the company has grown its customer base fivefold and now handles thousands of tasks every day. This pace of growth contributed to its recent admission to A-Road, the Growth Capital programme dedicated to fast-growing Italian scaleups.

"We started from a problem we experienced directly for years: firms' difficulty in finding junior staff, and the time that highly qualified professionals still spend on operational, repetitive tasks. We believe the value of AI truly emerges when it becomes a natural part of professionals' day-to-day processes, without adding further complexity. That is why we are building Rulen as an operating platform able to connect systems, data and activities that are fragmented today, automating entire workflows while keeping the professional firmly in control. Our goal is to make AI adoption simple, concrete and scalable. With this round and the move to Rulen, we want to accelerate our transformation from assistant to agentic platform, capable of automating end-to-end workflows without professionals losing control and verifiability," said Simone Hong, Co-Founder and CEO of Rulen.

"Every workflow we automate frees up time and multiplies firms' productivity. The next step is to extend this approach to more and more activities, integrating new systems and building AI agents able to handle execution steps autonomously, leaving professionals free to focus on the highest-value decisions," added Claudio Cama, Co-Founder and CTO of Rulen.

"We are delighted to support Simone and Claudio as lead investor, providing not only capital but all of our operational expertise for commercial growth and team building," said Stefano Siglienti, Managing Partner of VC Partners. "Tax advisory is a complex sector in which professionals still lack vertical AI tools designed to fit into their existing workflows. In Rulen we found a founding team that combines direct field experience with solid technological skills, and that has built a vertical AI platform for automation and intelligence that is already receiving an enthusiastic response from the market."

With the capital raised, Rulen aims to accelerate along two main lines - commercial expansion and product development - with the goal of consolidating its position as the go-to platform for end-to-end tax automation.

On the team side, the company plans to bring on around 10 new hires by the end of the year. It will strengthen its sales and marketing function, including SDRs dedicated to acquiring professional firms and corporate tax teams, and expand its product team with tax experts who will work alongside the tech team on the design of agentic workflows, to ensure automation stays aligned with clients' regulatory and operational needs.

Rulen was advised on the transaction by Occhiuto Legal, with Lucia Occhiuto, while the lead investor was advised by Target Law and Rovetta Zanello e Associati on legal and tax matters.

For more information: rulen.ai

(1) 2026 Report on the Profession, published by the Fondazione Nazionale di Ricerca dei Commercialisti (National Research Foundation of Chartered Accountants)

Media Contact

Eleventh

*****@projecteleventh.com

http://www.projecteleventh.com