MadeInAdd, the scale-up start-up founded as a system project on the initiative of CDP Venture Capital and in joint venture with Gruppo Dumarey and Fomas Group, presents Maddie, an AI agent designed to simplify access to additive manufacturing and accelerate its adoption.
MadeInAdd was created to guide the transition of the manufacturing sector through digitalisation and the countless possibilities offered by additive manufacturing. This transition is necessary to maintain the country’s competitiveness in a market where the figures clearly show the trends that describe the need, as well as the opportunity, to leverage the new digital solutions underlying additive manufacturing, both as an alternative and as an effective complementary tool to traditional manufacturing.
According to ISPI, China leads the world in traditional manufacturing with $4.8 trillion (27% of the total), followed by the United States with $2.8 trillion (17%). In this scenario, which is already challenging in terms of size and further complicated by the unpredictable effects of geopolitical balances, Italy remains the second largest manufacturing power in Europe and eighth in the world, but modest growth is expected, for which the recovery of European demand by +1.8% in 2025, worth 1,143 billion euros, will be fundamental (according to data collected by Intesa Sanpaolo and Prometeia).
Additive manufacturing, on the other hand, can count on a global value of around $25 billion in 2025, with estimated growth to $113 billion by 2032. This represents an annual CAGR increase of approximately 24%, which those with the know-how and tools will be able to capitalise on. In particular, it is estimated that Europe will reach a value of over $28 billion by 2030 and Italy, by the same year, around $2 billion (source: Grand View Research).
Furthermore, it is no longer possible to consider these figures without taking into account the acceleration that the introduction of AI tools will generate for businesses. This acceleration risks turning into a net loss of competitiveness and positioning for those who do not move quickly to analyse what the market has to offer and, above all, to adopt and use the best solutions. This is a high risk for all types of businesses, but particularly for Italian SMEs, which are the ones that best represent the country’s manufacturing excellence. According to data reported by Confindustria in June 2025, only 8.2% of Italian companies with more than ten employees use AI-based technologies, compared to a European average of over 15%, with peaks of over 20% in countries such as Germany, France and the Scandinavian countries.
It is on this set of forecasts, snapshots of risks and opportunities, as well as irreversible trends, that MadeInAdd was created to quickly bring the best, easiest and most adoptable solutions to market. Having already supported over 300 customers, its digital platform makes it easier for Italian manufacturing companies to select and use additive manufacturing materials and equipment throughout the country.
“I am thrilled to officially introduce Maddie, which the entire top-notch team at MadeInAdd has been working intensively on throughout 2025 and which has exceeded all our expectations in the way it reflects our consolidated experience in the field and in its power and precision of support starting from very simple inputs such as an image or a 2D file. The features of our AI Agent represent a real revolution for manufacturing, which we wanted to bring to market with maximum simplicity to enable rapid adoption,” said Andrea Gorlezza, CEO of MadeInAdd, in a statement. (in the photo) – We have condensed years of development and engineering expertise into a product with an extremely intuitive interface to accelerate decision-making processes and the implementation of complex projects, offering immediate solutions to businesses of all sizes, from architects who can transform a sketch into a prototype, to large companies that can assess the feasibility of a component in real time, and much more.
Maddie is the AI agent developed by MadeInAdd to provide technical support for customer choices on the platform.
Officially unveiled at the “MadeInAdd: Shaping the present of Additive Manufacturing” meeting at the Designtech space in Milano Certosa (which belongs to the same publishing company as Startupbusiness, ed.), Maddie represents both Italy’s capacity for innovation and a key milestone in the evolution of additive manufacturing.
Maddie opens up new horizons for the production of components and products, from large corporations to professionals who may not yet be experienced users of additive manufacturing.
The AI agent, depicted as a geometrically complex sphere formed by laser sintering metal powder, reminiscent of one of the high-precision industrial 3D printing technologies, breaks down all technical barriers of feasibility and time, allowing you to start an extremely simplified configuration process from simple renders, 2D drawings, and even photographs, to prepare for 3D printing. Based on the type of request entered, the AI agent will be able to provide a response tailored to the production possibilities: from the materials available to the best applicable technologies, to the actual production times and costs.
Maddie thus marks the beginning of a new era for the manufacturing industry, bringing decisive added value to the set of applications already present on the MadeInAdd platform, in constant synergy with the consulting work of the team of specialised engineers who, at the end of each order process, validate the configuration flow followed by the user with the help of Maddie, optimising it where possible and finalising the 3D model for the part, ensuring precision and reliability at every stage of the project and quality control of the printed part. The platform thus exponentially increases its efficiency and the speed with which it is able to respond, in the face of a multitude of inputs, to the most pressing needs of the market as well as to more specific requests: the possibility of rapid prototyping, optimisation of parts with a design that can only be produced with 3D printing (design for additive manufacturing), small series production, on-demand production, and components and spare parts that are no longer in production.
The introduction of Maddie is just the latest step in a technological development process that has led MadeInAdd to build a proprietary platform that is unique in the Italian additive manufacturing landscape. At its core is an advanced software infrastructure, developed in-house, which integrates machine learning models, automatic costing algorithms and a system dedicated to managing additive manufacturing processes.
The 2.0 platform includes vertical features for additive manufacturing, including 2D to 3D conversion, which allows you to generate a three-dimensional model in seconds from a simple drawing or image, and new automatic geometric checks that anticipate potential printing issues by suggesting the most suitable materials and technologies.
“For us, AI is not a trend to follow for its own sake, but a real accelerator of development,” comments Stefano Silvestrini, CTO of MadeInAdd. “We have worked to bring artificial intelligence into the heart of the platform, not only for Maddie, but in the entire way we manage models, data and processes. Features such as 2D to 3D conversion and new geometric check algorithms have been developed with a clear goal in mind: to make the user experience faster, more intuitive and more productive, without compromising the precision and expertise of our engineering team that sets MadeInAdd apart, but rather accelerating its operations and effectiveness.
With this approach, the start-up consolidates its position as an AI-powered additive manufacturing platform capable of transforming technological complexity into operational accessibility for companies and professionals of all levels.
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