Four former Amazon Luxembourg engineers decided to return to Italy and go out on their own. Their first attempt was AI consulting—a crowded and difficult market to differentiate in. After splitting up and rethinking the project, the team pivoted toward something much more concrete: a software platform for compliance in construction sites, a sector far from glamorous but full of real inefficiencies to solve.
The result arrived surprisingly quickly: eight months after the pivot, the startup, known as LEVELS, reached €200,000 in annual recurring revenue. It is not a huge number in absolute terms, but it is a strong signal of finding product-market fit quickly in a vertical market where demand is real and customers are willing to pay to reduce risk and regulatory complexity.
The context makes this story even more significant: the use of artificial intelligence among Italian companies doubled in 2025, but high costs and regulatory complexity remain huge hurdles for SMEs, which often lack the internal skills to adopt generic solutions. It is precisely in this space that vertical tools, capable of speaking the specific language of a sector like construction, find fertile ground.
The lesson for those wanting to launch an AI startup in Italy is clear: success rarely comes from the first attempt, but from the ability to pivot quickly onto a painful, measurable problem willing to generate immediate revenue, even in sectors considered less attractive by traditional investors.
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