Exe Engineering closes funding round €550,000 and begins collaborat...

Startup company EXE Engineering has closed an investment round of over half a million euros and announced a collaboration with Eni on carbon offsetting initiatives in Africa. These new funds will enable the startup to accelerate its roadmap and support it to expand its projects into new operational contexts, including international expansion in Europe and Africa.

Thanks to this transaction, in 2025 the startup raised a total of around 800,000 euros.

The funding round was led by Zero, the programme of the CDP Venture Capital National Accelerator Network, and developed in collaboration with Zest and Elis. The main corporate partners of this initiative are Eni Joule, the Eni School of Entrepreneurship and Eni Next, Eni's corporate venture capital company.

EXE Engineering took part in the Zero acceleration programme between 2024 and 2025 and developed a pilot project (Proof of Concept) with Eni. This was followed by the signing of a cooperation agreement in Africa to assess the development and implementation of innovative solutions aimed at emissions reduction and the environmental valorisation of waste.

“The acceleration path through Zero,” underlined Clara Andreoletti, CEO of Eni Next , was key in enabling Eni Next’s investment in EXE Engineering. It not only supported the team’s industrial and managerial growth, but also fostered, through a structured experimentation process, strategic alignment and greater clarity on the medium-to long-term development potential. This transaction validates our integrated open innovation model, which structurally links acceleration programmes with corporate venture capital activities.”

“The EXE Engineering transaction is a clear example of how the National Accelerator Network model promoted by CDP Venture Capital can turn innovation into real industrial development opportunities. Through Zero, we supported the startup along a path that combined entrepreneurial growth, technological validation and collaboration with a major partner such as Eni,” commented Stefano Molino, Head of the Accelerators Fund at CDP Venture Capital. “The entry of Eni Next into the investment further strengthens the industrial and strategic value of the transaction.”

During 2025, EXE Engineering also received several important recognitions. The startup was included in the “Top 100 Italian Startups” selected by Forbes and Ventive and received the special mention “Eni Joule for Entrepreneurship”, as part of the Eni Award, which aims to promote the best innovative and sustainable entrepreneurial ideas. The award was presented to the startup by the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, at the Quirinale Palace.

“The partnership established with Eni,” explained Gianni Cordaro, CEO and Founder of EXE Engineering, “marks an important milestone for the growth of our startup, which focuses on developing and deploying cutting-edge technologies to close the waste cycle, particularly in the capture and utilisation of biogas from landfill. This optimisation delivers not only a clear improvement in environmental impact, but also significant economic returns. It is therefore a great source of pride,” he concluded, “to collaborate with our partners and continue growing the company.”

Elena Martelli, Portfolio Manager at Zest, also expressed strong satisfaction “with this first milestone, which marks the start of a long-term collaboration with a positive impact on the planet. During the Zero acceleration programme,” she added, “we saw the team quickly strengthen its structure and begin thinking at scale, bringing innovation and execution capabilities to a sector that is still under served – landfill – yet crucial for the ecological transition. EXE Engineering,” Martelli concluded, “demonstrates that even from landfill, where everything may seem ‘at the end of the line’, innovation, energy and efficiency can emerge. We are proud to have planted the first seed and to see its fruits grow.”

EXE Engineering has developed and patented an integrated software–hardware system that automates and optimises the management of landfill biogas, increasing capture rates by up to 70% compared with traditional manually operated systems. This makes it possible to intercept greater volumes of methane that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere – a greenhouse gas with a climate impact approximately 25–28 times higher than CO₂ over a 100-year period – and to convert it into additional energy that can be used on-site or fed into the grid. The patented solution combines an automated substation (EXE Station) equipped with sensors and motorised valves, regulated on an hourly basis, with a software platform (EXE Manager) for monitoring, remote control and reporting.