Co-Founder Match (Maritime Ventures Founders Program)

Maritime Ventures is a venture building company backed by CDP Venture Capital, Fincantieri, PSA Italy, Intesa Sanpaolo, Neva SGR, Friulia, and Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo. Our mission is to launch high-impact startups that digitize SMEs in the Italian naval and port industry. We have already launched three ventures: BluComply, 4T4, and Fundo-one.

We are continuously looking for entrepreneurial profiles who do not yet have their own venture idea but want to co-found one. Through the Maritime Ventures Founders Program, we match driven operators, technologists, and commercial builders with early-stage founders who are already building B2B software ventures for the Italian naval and port industry and are looking for the right co-founder to complete their team.

If you have the skills and the ambition to build a company from the ground up, but are still searching for the right idea and the right partner, this is your entry point.

Tasks

As a matched co-founder, you will:

• Join an early-stage venture emerging from the Maritime Ventures Founders Program
• Drive execution across product, commercial, or technical workstreams, depending on your profile
• Build and grow the founding team alongside your co-founder
• Contribute to customer acquisition, business model validation, and go-to-market execution
• Engage with Maritime Ventures' ecosystem of investors, partners, and pilot customers
• Support fundraising efforts

Requirements

• Strong entrepreneurial mindset with a hands-on, execution-driven attitude
• Experience in early-stage startups, venture building, or scale-up environments
• Ability to operate across strategy, product, and commercial execution
• Exposure to fundraising processes and VC or investor-facing activities
• Interest in industrial, maritime, or B2B technology-driven businesses
• Fluent in English; Italian is a plus
• Italy-based or willing to relocate (optionally Genova or Trieste)
• Full-time commitment from day one

Benefits

• Founder-level equity in a validated, high-potential venture
• Up to 3.4 million euros in equity investment from selected Maritime Ventures shareholders, spread across different rounds
• Access to the Maritime Ventures and CDP Venture Capital networks, with warm introductions to pilot customers including Fincantieri and PSA Italy
• Hands-on venture building support on business model, go-to-market, product shaping, and MVP guidance
• The opportunity to build a company transforming one of Italy's most strategically important industries

We review profiles on a rolling basis and proactively match candidates with founders currently in the program.

If you are already building your own idea and want to apply directly to the Founders Program, visit maritime-ventures.com/founders-program.