Organized by Fiera di Roma in collaboration with Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI) and held in its seventh edition during the New Space Economy (NSE) European ExpoForum in December 2025, the NSE ExpoForum Pitch Competition is the dedicated moment in which the most promising start-ups put themselves to the test before investors, corporates, and innovators. It is an arena of dialogue and vision, where ideas and projects find the space to grow and stand out.
The absolute winner of the 2025 NSE Pitch Competition was announced to be LOKI, acronym for Laboratory Of Key Innovations, an Italian start-up incubated in I3P, the Innovative Companies Incubator of Politecnico di Torino, and in its incubation program ESA BIC Turin.
The Pitch Competition presented cutting-edge solutions in the fields of environmental sustainability, road safety, maritime monitoring, Earth observation, and climate analysis. LOKI won the contest, and its €5,000 prize, after Giovanni Arturo Vecchione, Co-Founder & CEO, pitched its project named Asfalto Sicuro® (Safe Asphalt), an advanced platform for detecting and classifying road defects using AI, inertial sensors, high-resolution imaging, and a global navigation satellite system (GNSS).
The start-up's technology is designed to reduce maintenance time and costs and to increase safety: -60% inspection time, -70% costs, -80% compensation. LOKI has already collaborated with several municipalities, achieving concrete results, and is now looking to the international market for automatic detection in motion.
The organizers and the jury of the initiative commented: "Congratulations to the team for standing out with vision, talent, and execution. Your work represents the spirit of the New Space Economy: bold ideas turned into real innovation. A sincere thank you to all the start-ups who took part in the competition: your projects, energy, and ambition are what keep this ecosystem moving forward."
The 2025 competition was designed as a launchpad, a chance to connect with an ecosystem of players who believe in innovation and in the cross-pollination between different worlds. Alongside LOKI, other innovative start-ups participated and presented projects that are engaged in maritime monitoring using tethered satellites, advanced climate modeling, risk analysis using EO data, and citizen science applied to cultural heritage. A rich and diverse landscape that confirms the vitality of the Italian innovative ecosystem.
The previous edition of the initiative, in 2024, was won by Astradyne, another Italian space start-up from the community of ESA BIC Turin. In the same occasion, REA Space was selected for a special prize.
At the end of the 2025 NSE ExpoForum Pitch Competition, a special side prize was awarded in addition to the official ones: Innovationship, Factory, and HIG offered the opportunity to take part in a stage of the Innovationship journey, an immersive growth and networking experience that brings together entrepreneurs, creatives, and innovators in a unique format.
