At the end of a truly extraordinary year for I3P, the Innovative Companies Incubator of Politecnico di Torino which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary with a rich series of special initiatives together with its community of innovators, the two incubated young companies recognized as the best of the year were announced during the traditional “Festa delle Startup” event in December.
Algor Education, selected from among the companies that completed their three-year incubation journey in 2024 and chosen due to the numerous milestones achieved in its growth, received the “I3P Start-up of the Year” award, while Kurs Orbital was awarded the new title of “ESA BIC Turin Start-up of the Year” for its achievements during the Turin incubation program dedicated to new space entrepreneurship.
Giuseppe Scellato, President of I3P, said, “We are really proud to have supported Algor Education from its very early stages of development: it represents a case of excellence in the application of AI with a high social impact and with great opportunities for growth in the market; moreover, it has already raised capital from business angels and private investment funds, both Italian and international. Within the space economy, Kurs Orbital has followed an outstanding entrepreneurial path: after establishing itself in the Piedmont region, the start-up raised several million euros in funding, which allowed it to structure the team and accelerate the development phases of its technical solution.”
The I3P Start-up of the Year 2024
Algor Education is an innovative startup from Turin that is revolutionizing the world of learning through innovative AI-based solutions. Its entrepreneurial adventure began in early 2021 from winning a university challenge organized by Politecnico di Torino: Mauro Musarra, then a student and now CEO of Algor, presented the idea to the incubator and gained access to an entrepreneurial growth path in I3P, undertaken together with five other Co-Founders who were under 25 at the time.
The young company has developed and marketed a web app for creating concept maps online with the help of AI, aiming to support students, teachers and professionals in both study and work. Algor's solution is based on artificial intelligence algorithms that can process and synthesize input of any kind - text, images, audio, video - automatically identifying key concepts and information, and then generate concept maps that can be edited, reorganized, and shared online. In addition, Algor offers innovative tools for testing learning, such as flashcards and quizzes on topics of interest.
Within a few months of its genesis, Algor's project soon garnered its first accolades, including winning the 2021 Ancalau Prize, 1st place in the ICT category and Intesa Sanpaolo's “Best Social Innovative Startup” award at the Italian National Innovation Award (PNI) 2021, the UniCredit Start Lab 2022 Impact Innovation Award. In the same year, the six Co-Founders - Giovanni Cioffi, Fabio Frattin, Antonino Geraci, Emanuele Gusso, Mauro Musarra, and Matteo Tarantino - were selected in the Forbes Under 30 by Forbes Italy, while in December 2023 the startup received a €1.4 million international investment, led by the British fund Emerge Education with the participation of the Investors Club, the holding company 40Jemz Ventures, and business angel Gustaf Nordbäck.
To date, Algor has 30,000 subscribers in 3 different countries to whom it offers quality solutions, thanks to the continuous work of a team that has grown to 12 over time. Now, to crown the three-year incubation period at I3P successfully completed and the excellent results achieved, the incubator has recognized it with the I3P Start-up of the Year 2024 award.
“Receiving the Start-up of the Year award from I3P is an immense honor and represents a symbolic moment in our journey, which began right at Politecnico di Torino. I still remember the early days, when we only had an idea, a few euros in our pocket, but a lot of determination. I3P believed in us from the first moment, giving us the opportunity and support we needed to turn an ambitious vision into reality. This recognition shows that with an extraordinary team, clear direction and the right ecosystem it is possible to build something great, even here in Italy,” commented Mauro Musarra, CEO of Algor Education. “I am confident that by working side by side, and continuing to surround ourselves with extraordinary people, we will be able to create a globally competitive company and make learning more accessible, personalized and engaging, helping students and professionals around the world reach their full potential.”
The “ESA BIC Turin Start-up of the Year”
Founded in 2022 in Turin, the innovative enterprise Kurs Orbital is incubated in I3P and is one of the first start-ups to have completed the ESA BIC Turin incubation program, managed by I3P with the technological support of Politecnico di Torino and LINKS Foundation, in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italian Space Agency (ASI). Among the program's eight “alumni” 2024, Kurs Orbital was awarded “ESA BIC Turin Start-up of the Year” due to the level of entrepreneurial growth achieved over the past two years and the significant financial investment already received in its project.
Kurs Orbital aims to democratize the on-orbit servicing and space logistics markets with its innovative standardized rendezvous module, ARCap, which can enable any spacecraft to autonomously perform proximity, approach, docking, and on-orbit capture maneuvers, even with uncooperative targets such as space debris or malfunctioning satellites.
The company won the Start Cup Piemonte Valle d'Aosta 2022 business plan competition, participated in the Seraphim Space Camp Accelerator and the SpaceFounders Acceleration Program, won several ASI-sponsored calls, and in March 2024 raised €3.7 million in seed investment in a round led by OTB Ventures with Credo Ventures, Galaxia, In-Q-Tel (IQT) and Inovo.
Volodymyr Usov, Co-Founder & CEO of Kurs Orbital, said: “These two years have been eventful to say the least. I3P and ESA BIC Turin have supported us tremendously, especially guiding us in our first applications to calls, programs and competitions. We won Start Cup Piemonte Valle D'Aosta in our first year, met many other interesting start-ups and developed valuable collaborations with some of them. And now that we are starting to walk on our own, we want to sincerely thank the entire incubator team for their tremendous support in our growth journey.”
