The winners of the first edition of Liquid Factory, the Startup Studio connecting Valtellina to Silicon Valley, have been announced. Created in partnership with Banca Popolare di Sondrio, Liquid Factory selected four entrepreneurs to launch the inaugural batch of startups in its Entrepreneurship in Residence program.

After a selection process involving 181 candidates from 20 countries, the chosen entrepreneurs will receive €200,000 in funding each, provided by Banca Popolare di Sondrio. Over the coming months, they will work in the bank’s dedicated spaces at Palazzo Lambertenghi, located at Piazza Garibaldi 5 in Sondrio.

With an acceptance rate of just 2.2%, the selection of the four Entrepreneurs in Residence took about two months of evaluation. The cohort includes two men and two women of Italian, Egyptian, and Polish origins, with prior professional experience in the United States, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

The selected entrepreneurs are:

Lora Fahmy (29, Liquid Sassella): An Egyptian-born designer raised in Italy and now based in Barcelona, she has developed an AI agent for interior design that combines augmented reality and online shopping, revolutionizing the furniture purchasing experience.
Ludovico Federici (22, Liquid Inferno): A graduate in Computer Science, Cognitive Science, and Data Science from UC Berkeley, Ludovico has worked with NVIDIA and Spotify. His startup focuses on an AI agent for sustainability that simplifies and accelerates ESG compliance processes for companies.
Matteo Mariani (27, Liquid Grumello): Formerly at Satispay, Matteo worked in London as a Product Manager at Danish unicorn Pleo, specializing in fintech and banking infrastructure. He aims to create an innovative platform based on stablecoins—a cryptocurrency linked to fiat currency—for managing international payments.
Sylwia Szymczyk (37, Liquid Valgella): Based in Varese and Switzerland, Sylwia is developing an AI agent for the fashion industry to assist creators in designing clothes, showcasing them on virtual models, and creating realistic videos to sell garments before production.
The next selection cycle is scheduled for June.