Created by GPD Studio Legale e Tributario with the US firm Polsinelli, The Venture Hour brought together in a single hour, at Zest, investors from San Francisco, Miami, Dallas, Washington, Kansas City and Colorado, alongside Nextalia Ventures, Lumen Ventures, Zest, Lazio Innova, Unfold Tomorrow and LTV. More than 200 people in the audience.
Six US investors and six of the leading players in Italian venture capital, in the same session, to hear seven Italian companies present themselves in three minutes each. This is the record of The Venture Hour, hosted on Wednesday evening at Zest in Rome as part of Rome Future Week 2026.
An unusual figure for the Roman innovation market, where capital from across the Atlantic normally arrives downstream, once a company has already grown elsewhere.
The initiative bears the signature of GPD Studio Legale e Tributario, with Andrea Gemma and Emanuele Rumi Rios, the firm’s point person for innovation, and of Polsinelli, with Matt Eckert and Adam Hull, partners in the venture capital and startup practice, who travelled to Rome from the United States for the occasion. With Zest, Needs and LTV.
Who was there
Joining from the United States were 1845 Ventures (Dallas), a venture studio active in health and wellness, energy, advanced mobility and manufacturing innovation; Leo Ventures, an early stage fund specialised in vertical artificial intelligence; Manna Tree (Vail, Colorado), an investment fund dedicated to human health through nutrition; Torridon Group (Washington), an advisory group focused on artificial intelligence, data infrastructure, cybersecurity and national security; Kompass Kapital (Kansas City), a family office active in financial services, business services, agribusiness, infrastructure, real estate and diagnostics; and Ashford Inc. (Dallas), an NYSE-listed group specialised in services and platforms for the hotel and hospitality sector.
In the room, alongside them, Melissa Morano Aurigemma of Exceptional Capital, an early stage fund with offices in San Francisco and Miami dedicated to B2B enterprise software; Federico Valla of Nextalia Ventures; Davide Fioranelli, founder and ceo of Lumen Ventures; Roberto Magnifico of Zest Group; Lorenzo De Fabio of Lazio Innova; Luigi Meschini of Unfold Tomorrow; and Matteo Aliotta of LTV.
The role of the two firms
The intention of the two firms was to introduce Italian startups to American capital and to build a stable bridge between the two markets, in the awareness that the role of professional advisers, at this stage, is crucial. Cross-border deals, in fact, do not stall on technology, but on structure.
Cap table, intellectual property, employment arrangements and data governance are the fronts on which an American due diligence comes to a halt, and on which Italian companies often arrive unprepared.
The sectors
The seven companies span artificial intelligence agents for large organisations, predictive analytics on human capital, AI applied to marketing and to surgery, geospatial intelligence for public administrations and utilities, drones and sensors for sports surfaces, and technologies for cultural heritage. Not all of them are at the same stage: some have international clients and established revenues, others are at their first contracts.
The initiative will have a structured follow-up in the coming weeks.
