Three young Italian aerospace engineers met during their studies in Delft and returned to Italy to found their startup: this is the story of Imane Marouf and Benedetta Margrethe Cattani, Alumnae of Politecnico di Milano, who founded Ecosmic, a new promise of "made in Italy" space innovation, together with their colleague from Politecnico di Torino, Gaia Roncalli.
"Our first product, Safe, focuses on preventing collisions in space."
– explains Cattani.
"There are millions of debris orbiting around the Earth, posing potential dangers. Safe is a software integrated into the back-end. It's like a weather alert notification, but it warns of a possible collision within, for example, three days," explains Cattani.
They have an ambitious goal: to transform the new-space industry ecosystem by introducing a modular approach. "Large satellites used to have specific software that did the same thing for 15 years," explains Cattani. "We develop software blocks that can work on different hardware, regardless of the satellite, and can be updated and implemented even after launch." The premise is the new industrial landscape, which in recent years has shifted from being the exclusive domain of a few major players to a multitude of public and private stakeholders. "Ecosmic is a software house for satellites," says Marouf. "We are three women, the founders, all Italian. We decided to return to Italy and create value here because there is a significant space ecosystem and a startup system that is still evolving." Recently, the company closed a €1.1 million pre-seed funding round led by Primo Space, and the team now includes 13 people, divided between aerospace and software engineers.
In recent months, they have been featured in Startupitalia, Forbes, La Repubblica, and Il Corriere della Sera.
