Italy’s startup scene spreads beyond Milan as funding accelerates
Italy’s reputation for design, manufacturing and industrial engineering is increasingly being matched by a new cohort of technology-led entrepreneurs. From Milan—still the country’s primary startup hub—to emerging clusters in Liguria and Lombardy, founders are building companies with international ambitions across fintech, climate tech, robotics, AI, legal tech and B2B software.
In a snapshot of that momentum, a group of 10 Italian startups founded from 2023 onward has recently secured funding rounds in 2025 or 2026, underscoring growing investor confidence and a maturing talent pool. The companies highlighted span both consumer-facing services and deep-tech platforms aimed at enterprise and industrial deployment.
Mobility and workforce software lead near-term scale
Brum, founded in 2024 in Milan, is digitising the process of obtaining a Category B driving licence. Its app centralises theory learning, document uploads, bookings and progress tracking, while coordinating in-person lessons from a learner’s location. The company has raised €8.5 million to expand city coverage and automate a system long defined by paper-heavy administration.
In B2B operations, Jet HR (founded 2023, Milan) is consolidating hiring, payroll, compliance and workforce administration into a single platform aligned with Italian labour law. Used by more than 1,000 companies, it has attracted about €41.7 million as it broadens its product suite.
Robotics and “Physical AI” attract large checks
Cyberwave (founded 2025, Milan) is building a vendor-agnostic control plane for deploying and managing mixed fleets of autonomous robots, with simulation-first development, telemetry and governance tools. It has raised €7 million.
In Liguria, Generative Bionics (founded 2025) is developing humanoid platforms for industrial settings, drawing on research roots linked to Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT). The company has secured €70 million to push deployments beyond the lab.
Trust, legal productivity and climate tech round out the wave
IdentifAI (Milan, founded 2024) targets AI-driven disinformation by assessing whether images, video, audio or text are human-made or generated, raising €7.2 million. Lexroom.ai (Milan, founded 2023) provides a legal-focused AI assistant emphasising verified, citable outputs, backed by roughly €18.5 million.
Meanwhile, Limenet (Lecco, founded 2023) is advancing a patented approach to permanent CO₂ removal by converting carbon dioxide into calcium bicarbonates stored in seawater, with €13.5 million raised as it moves toward a first industrial plant.
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