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CLEAN TECH & INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION 2026

On May 26, the Clean Tech & Industrial Commission was held, the second of the five planned within UniCredit Start Lab.

Below are the Board Experts for the Clean Tech sector:

• Marco Girotto - Head of Marketing and Innovation, Geoside
• Pietro Giuggioli Busacca - Strategy Director, Repower Italia
• Francesca Mariotti - Chief Executive Officer, NWG Italia
• Mauro Paganelli - Head of Strategic Engineering & Technology, Techint Engineering & Construction
• Giovanna Pozzi - Director Open Innovation and CVC, SNAM

And for the Industrial sector:

• Valentina Aureli - CEO, Aetna Group
• Luca Boffa - CEO, Gruppo Building
• Carmelo Giuffrè - Chairman & CEO, IRRITEC
• Jacopo Longhi Vienna - CEO, GivaGroup
• Piero Rinaldi - CEO, Sapi

The final ranking is as follows:

The startup winning first prize is: Displaid, a company offering an integrated and scalable solution that enables the adoption of monitoring across all bridges and viaducts of the infrastructure network. This is made possible thanks to intelligent IoT sensors, proprietary Artificial Intelligence-based analysis algorithms, and a visualization platform that provides useful information and early warning signals.

Second place goes to CarpeCarbon, which is developing a proprietary Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology for the permanent removal of CO₂ from the atmosphere. The company designs and builds modular and scalable plants capable of capturing carbon dioxide directly from ambient air. The captured CO₂ can be allocated to permanent storage or to industrial reuse, ensuring traceability and measurability of the climate impact.

In third place is Biotitan Nanotechnology, which develops  water-based nanotechnological technologies for advanced surface functionalization (antibacterial, anti-slip, self-cleaning, and performance-enhancing). The solutions, patented and certified, operate at the molecular level, increasing material durability and significantly reducing the use of chemical agents, water, and energy in maintenance cycles. The applications are transversal and target the construction, healthcare, industrial, and photovoltaic sectors.

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Two special mentions were awarded by the Commission, going to:

Rafla Tech, is active in the design, production, and commercialization of high-performance autonomous robotic systems, developed to operate in complex and highly regulated environments. By integrating mechatronics, artificial intelligence, and precision sensing, Rafla creates advanced platforms for UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) and UGV (Unmanned Ground Vehicle). The offered solutions find application in various sectors, including critical infrastructure, AgriTech, Smart Logistics, and environmental monitoring.

Antares Electrolysis operates in the hydrogen sector and is focused on the development and commercialization of electrolytic stacks based on Anion Exchange Membrane (AEM) technology intended for small and medium-sized electrolyzers (10-100 kW). In addition to green hydrogen production, the technology is designed for beyond hydrogen applications, with potential uses in the e-fuel, e-chemical, and sustainable fertilizers sectors, significantly expanding the possible market fields.

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The other startups that took part in the Commission and are joining the UniCredit Start Lab platform are (in alphabetical order):

Aenergy Power designs and develops modular and hybrid solutions for the recovery, storage, and intelligent management of energy in high energy‑intensity contexts. The systems integrate lithium batteries, renewable sources, and proprietary AI‑based software to optimize energy flows. The technologies make it possible to recover energy that is normally dispersed, reduce CO₂ emissions by up to 100% compared to diesel generators, and lower operating costs. The company operates in industrial environments, construction sites, ports, and energy communities.

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eMomentum provides a predictive maintenance and energy efficiency solution to optimize the performance of industrial and commercial machinery, reducing costs, failures, and energy waste. It integrates plug-and-play IoT sensors, software, and proprietary AI algorithms to monitor machine health, link mechanical anomalies to energy consumption, and quantify their impact in terms of additional energy use and CO₂ emissions. It delivers advanced analytics, reports, and prioritized maintenance recommendations to support timely, data-driven decisions, sending insights directly to tools already used by technical teams (such as WhatsApp), without requiring new credentials or interfaces, enabling a natural-language conversational experience even for complex technical topics.

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Overlab, with Greenverse, has developed an all-in-one AI-powered Industrial IoT platform that transforms decarbonization into a cost-reduction lever through the analysis of industrialprocesses data. The patented solution makes it possible to measure and reduce in real time the carbon footprint of products, optimize consumption of materials and energy, and support compliance with European and regulations on the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) as well as Product Carbon Footprint (ISO 14067). Greenverse also contributes to the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals on clean energy, responsible consumption, and climate action.

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Inventio.ai develops a software platform designed to bring AI onto the factory floor in a fast, scalable, and economically sustainable way. The solution integrates advanced Computer Vision and Language Models in edge in order to automate quality control with visual inspection of products as long as the analysis of real time field data. The result is a significant improvement in the quality of the finished product and operational efficiency, enabling a smarter and data-driven factory.

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Koala develops a digital infrastructure to enable the creation, management, and scalability of local energy markets. The proprietary platform enables, within a single ecosystem, the sharing and decentralized exchange of energy, as well as a collaborative space between citizens and sector professionals.

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SunCubes develops a proprietary technology for long-distance wireless energy transmission based on laser systems. The platform enables the continuous powering of drones, sensors, and autonomous systems, even in critical, remote, or off-grid contexts. By eliminating the constraints of physical recharging, the technology enables uninterrupted operations and new application scenarios, including security, industrial inspection, monitoring of critical infrastructure, defense, and the space sector.

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TaDa turns second-generation (2G) smart electricity meters into platforms of passive, distributed real-time intelligence. Through the open Chain2 protocol and a single plug in device, freely installed and communicating with the meter, it is possible to receive data at granularity even finer than quarter-hourly. TaDa reconstructs the load curve, via a patent-pending procedure, and applies proprietary NILM (Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring) disaggregation algorithms that identify appliance-level consumption, photovoltaic generation, and anomalies. 

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