Neocad, an Italian start-up founded in late 2024 with the aim of bringing artificial intelligence to the heart of mechanical design, has announced that it has closed a \u20ac550,000 pre-seed funding round, backed by 40Jemz Ventures and HabiSmart \u2013 the programme run by CDP Venture Capital\u2019s National Accelerator Network dedicated to proptech and sustainable construction \u2013 alongside Zest, Coima, Ariston and Nova Capital. The funding follows a previous investment received as part of the same acceleration programme and marks a new chapter in the company\u2019s growth. The funds will be allocated primarily to the technological development of the platform, with a focus on integration with CAD (computer-aided design) and PLM (product lifecycle management) systems used by Italian and international manufacturing companies, as well as commercial activities to validate the product in the market. <\/p>\n\n
CAD software has been an indispensable part of the industrial development process for over thirty years, but despite rapid technological advances, it has not yet fully harnessed the potential of generative artificial intelligence. It is this gap that gave rise to Neocad. Founded just under two years ago as an innovative start-up, it combines expertise in AI-based technologies, industrial design and software development to create a solution tailored to the needs of the CAD sector. <\/p>\n\n
Luca Licciulli, CEO, and Alessandro Toia, COO and Head of Sales, both with backgrounds in economics and management, and Ahmed Shahhat, CTO, who leads the platform\u2019s engineering architecture, are the three founders. The platform is an AI Agent designed to integrate with corporate CAD and PLM systems, enabling users to query a company\u2019s design history, identify existing components and support the generation of new models from simple text inputs. \u201cWe transform a company\u2019s design knowledge into an accessible and queryable asset, drastically reducing time and errors during the most critical stages of the process. This funding round allows us to accelerate on two concrete fronts: the technological development of the platform, with a focus on integration with systems already in use in manufacturing companies, and commercial validation on the Italian market. The future of design is generative, and we are already part of that future. Now we want to bring Italian companies into it too,\u201d says Licciulli in a statement (pictured alongside Toia and Shahhat). <\/p>\n\n
The start-up is already working with a number of industrial companies, including international automotive groups, with the aim of reducing the time taken to access technical information and improving the efficiency of design processes.<\/p>\n\n
From the very beginning, Neocad\u2019s journey has been closely intertwined with the Italian innovation ecosystem. The company was selected by Zest through the HabiSmart acceleration programme \u2013 CDP Venture Capital\u2019s initiative dedicated to proptech and sustainable construction within its national network of accelerators \u2013 and emerged as one of the most promising start-ups to take part. \u201cWe chose to invest in Neocad even before the company was formally established, backing a team that immediately impressed us with its ambition to become a global leader in its sector, rather than simply building a good solution. \u201cDuring the acceleration programme, they demonstrated that they could live up to this ambition thanks to rapid execution, a strong capacity for learning and an openness to feedback, engaging quickly with the market and transforming their vision into a ready-to-use product for enterprise clients in just a few months,\u201d says Andrea Peroni, portfolio manager at Zest and HabiSmart. <\/strong> \u201cThis funding round will enable the company to accelerate the go-to-market strategy for a product that has already proven its effectiveness in solving a real and pressing problem in industrial engineering and product design \u2013 a sector that remains underserved and where innovation is challenging due to the prevalence of deeply entrenched legacy tools, but which now offers enormous potential thanks to AI solutions such as Neocad\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n\n Joining Habitech in this round is 40Jemz Ventures, an investment holding company backed by ultra-high-net-worth individuals, whose mission is to identify the most promising early-stage start-ups and support them through a highly efficient operational process. The team comprises former founders and finance experts, with a sector-agnostic approach focused on building a deep and diversified portfolio. The firm stands out for its close relationship with founders and the speed of its investment execution, characteristics that make it a natural partner for companies like Neocad, where execution is everything. “At 40Jemz, we seek companies capable of transforming technological innovation into a measurable competitive advantage for industry. We were struck by Neocad\u2019s pragmatic approach: not a generic tool, but a co-pilot that integrates into CAD workflows and aims to free up technical time from repetitive tasks, improving the speed and quality of iterations. This application of generative AI to a complex sector such as mechanical design is a concrete response to the need for efficiency in our manufacturing companies. We are excited to support Luca, Alessandro and Ahmed on this journey, convinced that their ability to execute will make a difference in redefining the standards of CAD design,” concludes David Erba, co-managing partner at 40Jemz Ventures. <\/p>\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The start-up develops solutions designed for those working in mechanical design and has received funding from 40Jemz Ventures and CDP VC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":125,"featured_media":162936,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1317],"tags":[1324,1425,1143,1137,1136,1145],"companies":[3339],"journalist":[1518],"class_list":["post-162937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-funding-news","tag-artificial-intelligence-en","tag-design-en","tag-investments","tag-italy-en","tag-startup-en-2","tag-venture-capital-en-2","companies-neocad","journalist-editorial-staff-en"],"featured_sizes_urls":{"thumbnail":{"src":"https:\/\/www.startupbusiness.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/unnamed-2-1.webp","width":150,"height":107,"crop":false,"srcset":false,"alt":"AI-assisted mechanical design"},"large":{"src":"https:\/\/www.startupbusiness.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/unnamed-2-1.webp","width":1024,"height":731,"crop":false,"srcset":false,"alt":"AI-assisted mechanical design"},"2048x2048":{"src":"https:\/\/www.startupbusiness.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/unnamed-2-1.webp","width":1280,"height":914,"crop":false,"srcset":false,"alt":"AI-assisted mechanical design"}},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n