With over 50bn euros in assets under management and recor...

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 Eman

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