At the end of a truly extraordinary year for I3P, which has recently celebrated its 25th anniversary of activity with a rich series of special initiatives together with its community of innovators, during the traditional Startup Festival in December the two young companies recognized as the best of the year were announced.
Algor Education received the I3P Startup of the Year award, selected among the companies that completed their three-year incubation and choice path in 2024 thanks to the numerous milestones achieved in its growth, while Kurs Orbital was awarded the new title of ESA BIC Turin Startup of the Year for the results achieved during the Turin incubation program dedicated to new space entrepreneurship.
Giuseppe Scellato, President of I3P, said: “We are really proud to have supported Algor Education from its very early stages of development: it represents a case of excellence in the application of AI with a high social impact and with great opportunities for growth in the market; In addition, it has already raised capital from business angels and private investment funds, both Italian and international. In the field of Space Economy, Kurs Orbital has followed an entrepreneurial path of absolute importance: after settling in the Piedmont area, the startup has raised funding for several million euros that have allowed it to structure the team and accelerate the development phases of its technical solution”.
I3P’s Startup of the Year 2024
Algor Education is an innovative startup from Turin that is revolutionizing the world of learning thanks to innovative AI-based solutions. His entrepreneurial adventure began at the beginning of 2021 by winning a university challenge organized by the Polytechnic University of Turin: Mauro Musarra, then a student and now CEO of Algor, presented the idea to the incubator and gained access to an entrepreneurial growth path in I3P, undertaken together with five other Co-Founders under 25 at the time.
The young company has developed and marketed a web app to create online concept maps with the help of AI, with the aim of supporting students, teachers and professionals both in their studies and in their work. Algor’s solution is based on artificial intelligence algorithms capable of processing and synthesizing inputs of any type – text, images, audio, video – automatically identifying key concepts and information, and then generating concept maps that can be edited, reorganized and shared online. In addition, Algor offers innovative tools for verifying learning, such as flashcards and quizzes on topics of interest.
Within a few months of its genesis, the Algor project soon received its first awards, including the victory of the Ancalau Award 2021, the 1st place in the ICT category and the Best Social Innovative Startup of Intesa Sanpaolo award at the National Award for Innovation (PNI) 2021, the Impact Innovation Award of UniCredit Start Lab 2022. In the same year, the six Co-Founders – Giovanni Cioffi, Fabio Frattin, Antonino Geraci, Emanuele Gusso, Mauro Musarra and Matteo Tarantino – were selected in Forbes Italia’s Forbes Under 30 , while in December 2023 the startup received an international investment of 1.4 million euros, led by the British fund Emerge Education with the participation of the Club degli Investitori, the holding company 40Jemz Ventures and the business angel Gustaf Nordbäck.
To date, Algor has 30,000 subscribers in 3 different countries to whom it offers quality solutions, thanks to the continuous work of a team that has grown to 12 units over time. Now, to crown the three-year incubation period in I3P successfully completed and the excellent results obtained, the Incubator of the Politecnico di Torino has recognized her with the I3P Startup of the Year award of 2024.
“Receiving the Startup of the Year award from I3P is an immense honor and represents a symbolic moment of our journey, which began at the Polytechnic University of Turin. I still remember the early days, when we only had an idea, a few euros in our pockets, but a lot of determination. I3P believed in us from the very first moment, giving us the opportunity and support we needed to turn an ambitious vision into reality. This recognition shows that with an amazing team, a clear direction and the right ecosystem, it is possible to build something great, even here in Italy,” he commented Mauro Musarra, CEO of Algor Education. “I am confident that by working side by side, and continuing to surround ourselves with amazing people, we will be able to create a globally competitive company and make learning more accessible, personalized and engaging, helping students and professionals around the world reach their full potential.”
The ESA BIC Turin Startup of the Year
Founded in 2022 in Turin, the innovative company Kurs Orbital is incubated in I3P and is one of the first startups to have completed the incubation program of ESA BIC Turin, managed by I3P with the technological support of the Polytechnic University of Turin and the LINKS Foundation, in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italian Space Agency (ASI). Among the eight 2024 alumni of the program, Kurs Orbital was awarded as ESA BIC Turin Startup of the Year by virtue of the level of entrepreneurial growth achieved in the last two years and the important financial investments already received in its project.
Kurs Orbital aims to democratize the in-orbit assistance and space logistics markets with its innovative ARCap standardized rendezvous module, which can allow any spacecraft to autonomously perform proximity, approach, docking and capture maneuvers in orbit, even with non-cooperative targets such as space debris or malfunctioning satellites.
The company won the Start Cup Piemonte Valle d’Aosta 2022 business plan competition, participated in the Seraphim Space Camp Accelerator and the SpaceFounders Acceleration Program, was awarded several calls promoted by ASI and in March 2024 raised €3.7 million in seed investment in a round led by OTB Ventures with Credo Ventures, Galaxia, In-Q-Tel (IQT) and Inovo.
Volodymyr Usov, Co-Founder & CEO of Kurs Orbital, said: “These two years have been eventful to say the least. I3P and ESA BIC Turin have supported us in an extraordinary way, in particular by guiding us in our first applications for calls, programs and competitions. We won the Start Cup Piemonte Valle D’Aosta in our first year of activity, met many other interesting startups and developed valuable collaborations with some of them. And now that we are starting to walk on our own, we want to sincerely thank the entire incubator team for their enormous support to our growth path”.
(Source: I3P press release)
