For the eighth consecutive year, the prestigious magazine Forbes Italia has selected one hundred under-30s who are changing our country: some are artists, sportsmen or heirs to family traditions, while many others started from scratch to turn an idea into a business. Many of their stories reflect the major industry and economic trends of our time: from the artificial intelligence revolution to the new space race.
Again this year, as in 2021, in 2022, in 2023, and in 2024, the Italian Forbes Under 30s see a strong presence of the community of the Incubator of Politecnico di Torino, as many as twenty startuppers coming from I3P were included in the list, for a total - new record - of eleven innovative companies chosen among the 100 Number Ones, the young leaders of the future.
Forbes Italy's list is divided into ten categories: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Finance, Manufacturing & Industry, Media & Marketing, Retail & E-commerce, Science & Healthcare, Social Impact, Sports & Games, and Technology. Some of them include the young innovators who are following or have followed a path of growth within I3P, with the common goal of revolutionizing their reference sector.
Dropper
Domenico Galdiero, 27 years old, is the founder of Dropper, an innovative start-up that develops solutions for space monitoring and optimization. An Electronic Engineering graduate from Turin Polytechnic, Domenico founded Dropper in 2021 after winning the Italian RedBull Basement University title, turning his passion for technology into an entrepreneurial project. Since 2022, the start-up has been incubated in I3P.
Dropper uses artificial intelligence to analyze flows of people in real time, ensuring privacy and offering strategic metrics to improve building utilization. Companies it collaborates with include Microsoft, Banca Sella, Politecnico di Milano and STMicroelectronics: with the latter it has an industry partnership, achieved through awards such as its Technology Day 2023 award. The start-up, based in Turin and with a recent base of operations in Naples, has raised 80,000 euros through programs such as Zero, accelerator of the CDP national network, and Cleantech Accelerator. In 2024, Dropper was selected among the success stories of innovative start-ups in the construction sector by the Edinnova network of Confindustria Bergamo, confirming its role as a technology leader in space management.
Ecosmic
With their innovative start-up Ecosmic, which recently completed its incubation in I3P and in the ESA BIC Turin incubation program, young entrepreneurs Benedetta Margrethe Cattani (27 years old), Imane Marouf (26) and Gaia Roncalli (28) want to solve the problem of space traffic. Around Earth there are about 100 million pieces of debris, and each one of them is a projectile threatening to hit valuable assets. Every year there are thousands of reports of possible collisions, but, as Benedetta explained to Forbes, “99 percent are false. The algorithms used were created more than a decade ago and are not accurate now that the number of debris has grown exponentially. Our goal is to provide a more accurate algorithm.”
The start-up was born in Delft, Netherlands, then moved to Turin, attracted by the services and benefits offered by ESA BIC Turin, run by I3P. Ecosmic has a team of 12 people, and in November, at the Space Tech Expo in Bremen, it launched SAFE (System to Avoid Fatal Events), a software solution for space safety, now being beta tested in large companies such as D-Orbit. The company has already closed a €1.1 million pre-seed round led by Primo Space.
Evolunar
Staying on the space topic, Giuseppe Bortolato (27) and Stefano Pescaglia (28) are the co-founders of Evolunar, a spin-off of Politecnico di Torino and an innovative start-up incubated in I3P, Alumni of ESA BIC Turin. The company is developing interplanetary exploration vehicles capable of flying over the lunar surface. The spacecraft, called LuNaDrone, can be considered the space equivalent of the drones used on Earth, and the innovative technologies developed by Evolunar find application in this area as well, providing ground-based drones with autonomous navigation capabilities even in areas where GPS is not available or is jammed.
Thanks to the LuNaDrone's extreme mobility capabilities, Evolunar can offer a wide range of post-landing services on the Moon. The vehicle can be deployed for scouting missions, exploring areas otherwise inaccessible to conventional rovers (such as lava tubes), can provide last-mile delivery solutions, transporting scientific instruments away from the lunar landing site, and be used as a survey platform, allowing rovers and other surface vehicles to be guided through the fastest and safest route. In late 2023, Evolunar successfully closed a pre-seed investment round and in April 2025 opened a seed investment round.
MDCreate
Alessandro Mosca Balma, 28 years old, is co-founder of MDCreate, an innovative start-up supported by I3P since its creation, in 2023, in Piedmont, Italy. The young company deals with surgical planning of preoperative interventions and the development of tailored medical devices that assist the surgeon's activity in order to ensure solutions that are always versatile, optimized and safe. Specifically, MDCreate plans to bring to market an innovative, patented cutting guide for mandibular surgery. The cutting guides, which allow the repositioning of bone in an extremely intuitive, fast way and with the possibility of error reduced to almost zero, will be made on the basis of patients' CT scans sent by medical teams to the company, which will manufacture them through additive manufacturing.
While studying Biomedical Engineering at Politecnico di Torino, Alessandro had the opportunity to interface with the field of surgical design and there he met the other four team members who would become with him the founding partners of MDCreate. Within the team, he holds a variety of technical and decision-making positions that, combined with the expertise of the partners, have already enabled the establishment of international collaborations with companies in the field.
Mespac
The offshore wind energy sector is experiencing significant growth globally, and among the leading figures who are accelerating its evolution is Edoardo Pasta, 28 years old, Co-Founder & Chief Scientific Officer of Mespac. The start-up, which successfully completed its incubation path at I3P and ESA BIC Turin, develops renewable energy technologies using artificial intelligence and satellite data for siting and monitoring offshore wind farms.
At the end of 2024 the company raised a 1.5 million euro seed round, while Edoardo distinguished himself as a finalist in ICE's Global Startup Program, making it to the finals during the StartupItalia Open Summit, then earning his doctorate at the MOREnergy Lab of Politecnico di Torino with research on data-driven methods for modeling and controlling offshore devices, which won several awards. He has been a Visiting Researcher at several foreign institutions, including San Diego State University and Maynooth University; today he is also a researcher at Politecnico di Torino and a lecturer at TTPU in Tashkent. With over 45 publications and 2 patents, Edoardo is dedicated to innovation in renewable energy by combining entrepreneurship and research.
Point Zero
The path as a startupper of Giovanni Imberti (28 years old) began among the desks of Politecnico di Torino, during his master's degree in Automotive Engineering. His passion for cars, combined with his attention to the profound changes that are affecting our planet and the vehicle industry, led him to study how to analyze and reduce the emissions generated by braking systems. Giovanni proposed the idea to his academic referents and the innovative startup Point Zero was born, which obtained the support of I3P through Tech4Planet, the Italian national technology transfer hub dedicated to environmental sustainability of which the incubator is a technical partner.
The young company, a spin-off from the Polytechnic University of Turin, is developing ZEDS, a zero-emission braking system that uses electromagnetic force to provide effective and sustainable braking. In December 2024, Point Zero's innovative project won the Primo Round award at Premio 2031, one of Italy's leading competitions for innovators and start-ups.
Qomprendo
Created under the original name of Ummy, or Ummymood, the innovative start-up Qomprendo was founded in 2023 in Turin by three partners, including Alessandro Poffa, 28 years old. The young company helps companies understand and solve staff problems, increasing staff engagement and decreasing turnover. The artificial intelligence developed by Qomprendo, in fact, detects workers' stress and predicts the risk of resignation: the start-up's platform provides a clear view of trends, mood and critical areas within organizations.
The project was launched in 2022, with the start-up's first pilot collaboration with a company beginning in February 2023. The startup was selected by Digital Magics for an acceleration path, included in the Top Startups 2023 by StartupItalia, and in December, in the context of Premio 2031, Qomprendo won the special LifeGate Way award, aimed at companies operating in the ESG segment with willingness to position and transition to benefits, while the following year it became a finalist in the Luce! Inclusive Startup 2024 award.
Rilemo
There are five, with a female majority, Co-Founders of the medtech start-up Rilemo, initially created under the name Previeni: Nadim Conti (30 years old), Pablo Giaccaglia (26), Valentina Lidoni (25), Alessia Rosa (29), Desirée Spreafico (30). Rilemo develops a portable AI-supported imaging device to acquire real-time images on the presence of pathological fluid accumulation in patients, wherever they are: thanks to its versatility and portability, the device allows to identify the type and amount of fluid in various anatomical districts, supporting physicians and healthcare professionals in diagnosis and monitoring.
Incorporated in October 2024, the company is accelerated by Bocconi for Innovation (B4i), an entrepreneurial hub of Milan's Bocconi University. “Our goal is to bring the diagnosis directly to the patient, wherever they are, to avoid late diagnosis and streamline procedures and waiting times for patients,” explained Valentina Lidoni, CEO of Rilemo, in an interview with Bocconi University. “The device is currently being validated at hospital facilities, focusing on rheumatology and pulmonary applications. However, its versatility will allow us to extend its use to other areas of the human body in the future.”
SEAform
Enrico Giglio, 27 years old, is co-founder of SEAform, a spin-off of Politecnico di Torino that deals with developing innovative technologies for the creation of modular, sustainable and scalable soil that allows the transition of human life on water. With the prospect of having to face a constant rise in sea levels globally - estimated at 5 meters more by the year 2100 - and the progressive increase in the Earth's population (over 8 billion human beings today), SEAform aims to make life on water possible and not impacting the ecosystem.
The entrepreneurial project was born in 2022 within the Marine Offshore Renewable Energy Lab, a research group of Politecnico di Torino. In 2023 it won the "Social Innovation" special mention at the Start Cup Piemonte Valle d'Aosta business plan competition, while in 2024 the start-up - officially established as a company - was selected by Faros, the first Italian accelerator in the Blue Economy sector of the CDP national network, which operates in collaboration with the Port System Authority of the Ionian Sea - Port of Taranto, Italy.
Searcode
Rizieri Mele, 27 years old, is the founder of Searcode, the software & hardware house born in 2019 in Catanzaro that gave life to the Coverride project, "graduated" in I3P at the end of 2024. Coverride creates smart accessories whose design can be modified through an app, overcoming the paradigm of traditional accessories whose aesthetic contribution is a static characteristic of the product. The company aims to counter fast fashion, offering a sustainable and creative solution that enhances personal expression.
The first product in the line is an electronic cover for smartphones, already presented at international events such as the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas and the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, attracting the attention of global corporations in the smartphone accessories segment. In March 2025, Searcode was financed for €400,000 by Intesa Sanpaolo through the Convertibile Impresa instrument.
Syllog AI
Edoardo Anselmi (27 years old), Fabrizio Gullo (28) and Davide Ludovico (28) are the co-founders of Syllog AI, an innovative start-up with offices in Prato and Turin that has developed an autonomous learning platform that, thanks to the use of artificial intelligence, allows the creation of growth and development paths in the corporate environment, making the employee training experience engaging and personalized.
The young company has the mission of putting people back at the center of the corporate training experience, enhancing the human capital of companies: AI is in fact used to perform low added value activities, automating most of the phases of the learning and development process. A few months ago, the young company, supported by I3P since 2023, successfully closed a pre-seed financing round of €500,000, led by 40Jemz Ventures and TechAround, with the participation of important companies in the field of artificial intelligence, including Mival Capital, and several Italian and American entrepreneurs. The new financing has laid the foundations for the expansion in Europe scheduled for 2026.
