Seven Italian startups pitch to US investors and leading Italian venture capital firms in Rome

Seven Italian startups pitch to US investors and leading Italian venture capital firms in Rome

Six US investors and six leading Italian venture capital operators gathered in the same session to hear seven Italian startups present in three minutes each, at The Venture Hour, hosted on Wednesday evening at Zest's premises in Rome as part of Rome Future Week 2026. Over 200 people attended.

The event marked an unusual moment for Rome's innovation market, where transatlantic capital typically arrives only once a company has already grown elsewhere.

From the United States, the event connected 1845 Ventures (Dallas), a venture studio active in health and wellness, energy, advanced mobility and manufacturing innovation; Leo Ventures, an early-stage fund specialising in vertical artificial intelligence; Manna Tree (Vail, Colorado), an investment fund dedicated to human health through nutrition; Torridon Group (Washington), an advisory group focused on artificial intelligence, data infrastructure, cybersecurity and national security; Kompass Kapital (Kansas City), a family office active in financial services, business services, agribusiness, infrastructure, real estate and diagnostics; and Ashford Inc. (Dallas), an NYSE-listed group specialising in services and platforms for the hospitality sector.

In the room, alongside them, were Melissa Morano Aurigemma of Exceptional Capital, an early-stage fund with offices in San Francisco and Miami dedicated to B2B enterprise software; Federico Valla of Nextalia Ventures; Davide Fioranelli, founder and CEO of Lumen Ventures; Roberto Magnifico of Zest Group; Lorenzo De Fabio of Lazio Innova; Luigi Meschini of Unfold Tomorrow; and Matteo Aliotta of LTV.

The seven participating startups cover artificial intelligence agents for large organisations, predictive human capital analytics, AI applied to marketing and surgery, geospatial intelligence for public administrations and utilities, drones and sensor technology for sports surfaces, and technologies for cultural heritage. The companies are at varying stages of development: some with international clients and consolidated revenues, others at their first contracts.

The initiative was conceived by GPD Studio Legale e Tributario, with attorneys Andrea Gemma and Emanuele Rumi Rios, the firm's innovation team leads, together with US firm Polsinelli, with partners Matt Eckert and Adam Hull of the venture capital and startups practice, who travelled to Rome from the United States for the occasion. The event was hosted with the support of Zest, Needs and LTV.

The intention behind the initiative was to introduce Italian startups to American capital and build a stable bridge between the two markets, on the basis that in cross-border transactions the key obstacles are typically structural rather than technological, with cap table structure, intellectual property, employment arrangements and data management being the areas where American due diligence most often stalls, and where Italian companies frequently arrive unprepared.