Ten italian startups meet global innovation leaders in the United States
Five days of training, visits to leading global research hubs such as Berkeley and major technology companies including Microsoft and Bosch, as well as meetings with innovation experts and networking opportunities with potential international partners. From 26 to 30 October, ten Italian deep tech startups are visiting the United States on a study visit spanning San Francisco, Silicon Valley and Seattle. The initiative is one of the entrepreneurial support activities provided under Deep Tech Revolution, a programme established by Area Science Park, a national research institution in Italy, to support innovative companies with a strong scientific and technological focus.
The mission aims to connect the startups directly with some of the world’s leading research and innovation ecosystems and foster the development of new industrial and commercial relationships.
Taking place from 26 to 30 October, the study visit covers some of the United States’ leading innovation hubs, from San Francisco and Silicon Valley to Seattle. Following an initial day of training focused on the American entrepreneurial ecosystem, the itinerary includes visits to the University of California, Berkeley campus and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, two major centres of scientific and technological research. The programme also features meetings with researchers from the ISSNAF (Italian Scientists and Scholars in North America Foundation) network, which brings together Italian scientists and scholars working in North America, as well as visits to organisations such as SRI International, an independent research centre, and MBC BioLabs, which specialises in supporting biotechnology startups. Additional meetings have been arranged according to the startups’ respective fields of activity. Startups operating in the life sciences will visit ImYoo, a Bay Area biotechnology company, while those working on energy and climate technologies will meet researchers at Bosch’s R&D centre, with the opportunity to present their projects to the group’s corporate venture capital fund. The second part of the mission will take place in Seattle, with visits to major international companies such as Microsoft and T-Mobile, as well as 9Zero, a hub dedicated to climate technologies, and the Washington Clean Energy Testbeds, a centre specialising in supporting research and the commercialisation of clean energy technologies. Throughout the five days, the programme will also include startup project presentations, networking sessions and opportunities to engage with potential industrial partners and investors, with the aim of exploring collaboration and business development opportunities in the US market.
«Through Deep Tech Revolution, we aim to support startups not only in developing their technologies, but also in the process of bringing research results to market,” said Roberto Pillon, Head of the Business Generation Unit at Area Science Park. “The study visit to the United States offers an opportunity to engage with some of the world’s leading innovation ecosystems, learn about entrepreneurial development models and build relationships with potential industrial partners, research partners and investors. This is an important step for science-intensive projects, which need expertise, resources and connections in order to grow».
The projects developed by the ten startups span a wide range of fields, from life sciences to advanced digital technologies, from research into new materials to the energy transition. Their applications include surgical robotics and medical technologies, biotechnology for food production and the development of new therapies, energy storage and conversion systems, superconductivity, satellite communications, digital simulation and quantum computing. These are all research-intensive sectors in which the development of new technological solutions requires specialised scientific expertise, advanced infrastructure and effective pathways for transferring research results to the market.
The Programme and the Startups
Launched in February 2026, Deep Tech Revolution is the programme through which Area Science Park supports the development of entrepreneurial projects based on frontier technologies in four areas: materials science, advanced digital technologies, green energy value chains and life sciences.
The programme initially envisaged funding five startups, selected through a call for applications that attracted 80 complete submissions from 14 Italian regions. In May, in recognition of the high scientific and technological value of the projects submitted, Area Science Park decided to double the programme’s total funding from €1 million to €2 million, enabling a further five startups to join the programme, selected according to the original ranking.
Each of the ten companies receives €200,000 in support, half in the form of a non-repayable grant and the other half through high-technology research and development services and business growth support services. The distinctive feature of the twelve-month programme is access to Area Science Park’s research infrastructure and advanced laboratories, including facilities dedicated to genomics and epigenomics, electron microscopy and materials analysis, as well as high-performance computing (HPC) infrastructure. These resources are complemented by training, capacity-building, networking and internationalisation activities, of which the study visit to the United States is one of the key stages.
The first cohort, which began its activities in February, includes Soundsafe Care (Pisa), which develops ultrasound-based robotic solutions for non-invasive surgical procedures; Yeastime (Rome), which uses ultrasound to improve the productivity of microalgae cultivation for the food, nutraceutical and biotechnology sectors; Novac (Modena), which is developing structural supercapacitors for energy storage in electric mobility; Magnetic Future (Bologna), which works on high-temperature superconducting switches for applications in energy and other advanced sectors; and SatEnlight (Milan), which develops optical technologies to increase the speed, reliability and security of satellite communications. Five additional startups joined the programme in May: LivGemini (Rome), which uses digital twin technologies for the diagnosis and personalised treatment planning of thoracic aortic aneurysms; Antares Electrolysis (Genoa), which develops next-generation electrolysers for hydrogen production; DNAswitch (Padua), which is developing new therapeutic approaches for Huntington’s disease; EMC Gems (Udine), which specialises in advanced electromagnetic simulations and digital twin technologies for the design of electronic devices; and Rotonium (Padua), which is working on the development of room-temperature photonic quantum processors.