The Italian startup that brought artificial intelligence to mechanical design strengthens its presence in the manufacturing industry with the support of HabiSmart, the acceleration program of CDP Venture Capital’s National Accelerator Network dedicated to PropTech and Sustainable Construction, and 40Jemz Ventures

Legnano (MI), April 9, 2026 — NEOCAD, an Italian startup founded in late 2024 with the goal of bringing artificial intelligence to the heart of mechanical design, announces the closing of a €550,000 pre-seed round, subscribed by 40Jemz Ventures and HabiSmart, the acceleration program of CDP Venture Capital’s National Accelerator Network dedicated to PropTech and Sustainable Construction, together with Zest, Coima, Ariston, and Nova Capital. The transaction follows the previous investment received as part of the same acceleration program and marks a new chapter in the company’s growth. The funds will be allocated primarily to the technological development of the platform, focusing on integration with CAD and PLM systems used by Italian and international manufacturing companies, and to commercial activities for product validation in the market.

NEOCAD’s Vision: The AI Agent for Mechanical Engineers

CAD software has been essential in the industrial development process for over thirty years, but despite rapid technological advances, it has not yet fully integrated the potential of generative artificial intelligence. NEOCAD was born from this gap. Founded just under two years ago as an innovative startup, it combines expertise in AI-based technologies, industrial design, and software development to create a solution designed for the needs of the CAD sector.

Three young co-founders lead NEOCAD: Luca Licciulli, CEO, and Alessandro Toia, COO & Head of Sales, with backgrounds in economics and management, and Ahmed Shahhat, CTO, who leads the platform’s engineering architecture. The platform is an AI Agent designed to integrate with corporate CAD and PLM systems, enabling queries of a company’s design history, identifying existing components, and supporting the generation of new models from simple text inputs. “We transform a company’s design knowledge into an accessible and queryable asset, drastically reducing time and errors in the most critical phases of the process. This 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 in the Italian market. The future of design is generative, and we are already in that future. Now we want to bring Italian companies into it as well.” emphasizes Luca Licciulli, CEO of NEOCAD.

The startup is already active with several industrial companies, including international automotive groups, with the goal of reducing access time to technical information and increasing efficiency in design processes.

The Journey with Zest and HabiSmart

NEOCAD’s path has been intertwined from the beginning with the Italian innovation ecosystem. The company was selected by Zest through the HabiSmart acceleration program, CDP Venture Capital’s program dedicated to PropTech and sustainable construction within its National Accelerator Network, in which it participated and emerged as one of the most promising startups.We chose to invest in Neocad even before the company was incorporated, betting on a team that immediately impressed us with their ambition to become a global reference point in their sector and not limit themselves to building a good solution. During the acceleration program, they demonstrated their ability to sustain this ambition through rapid execution, a strong learning capacity, and openness to dialogue, quickly engaging with the market and transforming their vision into a product ready for enterprise clients in just a few months .” comments Andrea Peroni, Portfolio Manager of Zest and HabiSmart. “This round will enable the company to accelerate the go-to-market of the product, which has already demonstrated its effectiveness in solving a real and urgent problem in industrial engineering and product design—a field still underserved and difficult to innovate due to the presence of deeply entrenched legacy tools, but which now offers enormous potential thanks to AI solutions like Neocad’s.”

The Investors: 40Jemz Ventures

Alongside Habitech in this round, 40Jemz Ventures SpA enters as an investment holding capitalized by Ultra-High-Net-Worth Individuals, with the mission of identifying the most promising early-stage startups and supporting them with a highly operationally efficient process. The team consists of former founders and finance experts, with a sector-agnostic approach oriented toward building a deep and diversified portfolio. The company stands out for its proximity to founders and speed of investment execution, characteristics that make it a natural partner for companies like NEOCAD, where execution is everything. “At 40Jemz, we look for companies capable of transforming technological innovation into measurable competitive advantage for industry. What struck us about NeoCad was their pragmatic approach: not a generic tool, but a copilot that enters CAD workflows and aims to free up technical time from repetitive activities, improving the speed and quality of iterations. This application of generative AI to a complex sector like mechanical design is a concrete response to the efficiency needs of our manufacturing companies. We are excited to support Luca, Alessandro, and Ahmed on this journey, convinced that their execution capability will make the difference in redefining CAD design standards.” concludes David Erba, Co-Managing Partner of 40JEMZ.

About NEOCAD

NEOCAD is an innovative Italian startup founded in 2024 that develops CAD design software solutions based on generative artificial intelligence. The company was created with the goal of making technical design faster, more efficient, and strategic, supporting engineers and designers in structured companies with operational and repetitive activities. The platform centralizes and enhances corporate CAD assets, transforming design history into a queryable knowledge base. It indexes models and technical know-how, enabling searches for previously developed solutions, simulating alternatives, and supporting technical decisions, reducing time and duplication. Aimed at manufacturing companies and design and R&D teams, the company positions itself at the intersection of traditional design and generative AI, introducing a new paradigm of assisted design, available in Cloud or On-Premise mode.

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