500 selected leaders from around the world across start-ups, corporates, and venture capital. Over €50bn in assets under management among attending investors, and more than €1.2bn raised by participating start-ups. The Emilia-Romagna region takes a leading role in the growth of Europe’s sovereign technology ecosystem.
On 11 and 12 May, Bologna and the Emilia-Romagna region will once again host what has become one of the most anticipated gatherings dedicated to venture capital, start-ups, and emerging technologies: the fourth edition of The Bologna Gathering (TBG), whose founding partners are ART-ER, the Metropolitan City and Municipality of Bologna, and the Emilia-Romagna Region. The event will bring together more than 500 innovation leaders from Europe, the Americas, and Asia.
Assets under management (AUM) among participating funds exceed €50bn this year, up from €39bn in the previous edition, while capital raised by participating start-ups and scale-ups surpasses €1.2bn. The event is by invitation only and is designed to connect the most important players in innovation: investment funds, senior executives from Italian and international corporates, and founders of unicorns and scale-ups active across more than 15 technology sectors, from artificial intelligence and the space economy to cloud and cybersecurity.
The fourth edition of the event is shaped by two clear dynamics. The first is that Europe has committed to building its own technological sovereignty, accelerating the development of its start-up ecosystem. The second is that Italy is emerging as a fast-growing technology hub where venture capitalists from around the world want to invest. In this journey, Bologna and the Emilia-Romagna region continue to strengthen their role as a strategic platform for innovation, through The Bologna Gathering and thanks to assets such as the DAMA Technopole — home to Leonardo, one of the ten most powerful AI supercomputers in the world — and IT4LIA AI Factory, an internationally recognised project promoting the adoption of artificial intelligence in Italy and Europe.
Against an increasingly complex geopolitical scenario, this edition highlights how Europe is building its technological independence in the most strategic sectors of the coming decade: from artificial intelligence to defence and cybersecurity, from space to autonomous driving, through to sovereign cloud infrastructure. Key participants include companies developing strategic European technologies such as Axelera AI, Cubbit, Exein, Niulinx, SiPearl, and many others, confirming that Europe's technology ecosystem is developing its own champions and becoming increasingly competitive on a global scale.
“ART-ER is among the founders of The Bologna Gathering because the event represents a unique opportunity to connect Emilia-Romagna’s innovation ecosystem with the most advanced international networks in venture capital and technology. Our objective is to strengthen the region's positioning as a strategic hub for European technological sovereignty, attracting talent, investment, and high-impact projects. In line with this, and simultaneously with TBG, we have launched the first edition of R2I Research to Innovate Italy, an event organised by ART-ER together with the Emilia-Romagna Region and the Conference of Regions and Autonomous Provinces, created with the aim of placing regional territories and innovation ecosystems at the heart of national and European policy,” said Marina Silverii, Executive Director of ART-ER.
“Bologna is increasingly establishing itself as a European point of reference for innovation and emerging technologies, - said Matteo Lepore, Mayor of the Municipality and Metropolitan City of Bologna. “The Bologna Gathering is a concrete opportunity to connect talent, capital, and businesses, strengthening the role of our city and Emilia-Romagna as a strategic platform for the development of a competitive technology ecosystem that is open to the world. In a complex global context, investing in research, artificial intelligence, and new businesses means building Europe’s future starting from our regions, and Bologna is ready to play its part with vision and responsibility. Our commitment is to continue strengthening this path, making Bologna an urban laboratory where technological development and social cohesion grow together, and where innovation becomes a concrete tool to improve people’s lives.”
"Never before has Europe asked itself so urgently how to turn the continent’s new technology companies into global champions. At a time when tech made in Europe will become increasingly strategic, Italy must play a central role in this journey. The Bologna Gathering was created precisely to connect the best international investors with the best Italian companies, creating, through a private, relationship-driven format, the conditions for the best of our ecosystem to grow with European and global ambition," — Stefano Onofri and Alessandro Cillario, originators of the event and co-founders of Cubbit, a leading European scale-up in distributed cloud technologies.
The Bologna Gathering is a tangible example of public–private collaboration, produced by the StartYouUp association and Cubbit. Key partners of the 2026 edition are the BI-REX Competence Centre and IT4LIA AI Factory, with SAP as gold sponsor, FNDX as silver sponsor, and the support of CTE-COBO, G-Factor (Fondazione Golinelli), Almacube, Gianni & Origoni, MUG Magazzini Generativi, and Qonto.
www.bolognagathering.com
FACT SHEET
Investors from around the world
On the venture capital front, the most prominent names include Saul Klein, co-founder of LocalGlobe and its holding company Phoenix Court — a venture capital group that has established itself as No. 1 in EMEA and in the top 0.01% of funds globally according to the Dealroom 2025 report — and Emanuele Levi, Chief Executive Officer of CDP Venture Capital, Italy's leading venture capital fund. Alongside them are international players including White Star Capital (a global fund with offices in New York, London, Paris, Toronto, Tokyo, and Singapore), BlackRock (the world's largest private equity firm by assets under management, according to Dealroom), and Woven Capital (the venture arm of the Toyota Group). On the European front, participants include ETF Partners (a London-based fund among the most respected in Europe for sustainability-focused investing), DTCP (a German fund that in January 2026 launched a €500m vehicle dedicated to defence and security technologies), Hitachi Ventures (the venture arm of the Hitachi Group), and Eurazeo (a world-leading investment company with 14 offices worldwide and capital invested in more than 600 companies).
Record-breaking deals from participating scale-ups
The 2026 edition also highlights some of the most significant transactions in the European technology landscape over recent months. Key participants include Fabrizio Del Maffeo, CEO and co-founder of Axelera AI, a Dutch scale-up of Italian origin specialising in artificial intelligence, which raised $250m in February 2026; and Gerardo Gagliardo, co-founder of Exein, the cybersecurity scale-up behind Italy's record double round in 2025, with €70m and €100m raised. Also attending are Luca Foresti, CEO and founder of Niulinx, a start-up specialising in autonomous driving that raised €38m in April 2026 — the largest European seed round ever recorded in the sector; Luca Rodella, CEO and co-founder of Smartness, an AI hospitality start-up that closed a €47m Series B round in May 2026; and Daniele Pucci, CEO of Generative Bionics, a humanoid robotics start-up that closed a €70m round in December 2025, among the largest in Europe in the sector.
International investment arriving in Italy
The trend is confirmed by the data. According to PitchBook's Q1 2026 Italy Market Snapshot, Italy recorded 225 VC funding rounds in the first quarter of 2026 — 80% more than the same period the previous year, and the highest figure of any quarter over the past decade. Further evidence of this trend comes from the presence, among The Bologna Gathering 2026 investors, of Rocio Pillado (Adara Ventures), Charlotte Lafont (Ring Capital), and Briehan Burke (Keen Venture Partners): three leading figures in European venture capital who are actively seeking Italian technologies to invest in, and whose participation confirms that the Italian ecosystem is attracting increasingly qualified international attention.
Corporations supporting innovation
Alongside investors and scale-up founders, The Bologna Gathering will bring together major industrial groups and corporates interested in close dialogue around innovation, partnerships, and technological transformation. These include SAP, Leonardo, Intesa Sanpaolo Private Banking, Scaleway, Klarna, Lamborghini, Fastweb + Vodafone, Zanichelli, Mitsubishi Corporation, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Ducati, and Ferrari.
Event venues
The fourth edition will unfold across some of the region’s most symbolic venues. The first day will feature appointments hosted at prestigious locations across the city: Bologna Business School, the Ducati Museum, BI-REX, and Palazzo Magnani. The second day will centre on the DAMA Technopole, now one of the key hubs of European innovation, while the Gala Dinner will be held at Palazzo Re Enzo, in the heart of Piazza Maggiore. This choice reflects the organisers’ commitment to bringing together the quality of relationships, the centrality of the region, and the symbolic value of the places that represent the region’s technological transformation.
The 2026 programme
The 2026 programme features a series of high-profile moments, including addresses by Ekaterina Zaharieva (European Commissioner for Start-ups, Research and Innovation), Francesca Bria (President, ART-ER), Matteo Lepore (Mayor, Municipality and Metropolitan City of Bologna), and Michele de Pascale (President, Emilia-Romagna Region). A conversation will also take place between Alec Ross (technology policy expert, entrepreneur, and distinguished professor), Saul Klein (Founder, LocalGlobe & Phoenix Court), Emanuele Levi (CEO, CDP Venture Capital), and Briehan Burke (General Partner, Keen Venture Partners). Further speakers include Francesco Ubertini (President, CINECA), Fabrizio Del Maffeo (CEO and co-founder, Axelera AI), Claudio Domenicali (CEO, Ducati), Frédéric Pascal (Managing Director of Global Private Markets, SAP), Gerardo Gagliardo (Co-founder, Exein), Patrick Sheehan (Managing Partner and Founder, ETF Partners), Sebastiano Toffaletti (CEO, European DIGITAL SME Alliance), Xixi Richter (Executive Director, BlackRock), Martina Domenicali (Co-founder, Lexroom), and many others.
In synergy with The Bologna Gathering, on 12 and 13 May, Bologna will also host R2I — Research to Innovate Italy, the new national event dedicated to bringing together business, research, institutions, and regional ecosystems.
