At just 23, Italian entrepreneur Joseph Perrotta is taking an ambitious idea born in Europe to the heart of the American technology ecosystem. In an interview with the Italian daily La Repubblica by Gabriella Rocco, Perrotta describes the journey that brought his startup Invertix from Italy to Y Combinator’s F26 batch in California.
Raised in Viterbo and educated in Bologna, Perrotta co-founded Invertix with Kaan Durmaz to tackle one of the biggest challenges facing artificial intelligence – energy. Their company develops specialized AI workers for renewable-energy operators, integrating information from multiple systems to help human teams monitor plants, manage maintenance, analyze performance and handle regulatory requirements.
The numbers already point to remarkable growth. Invertix was officially founded in March 2026 and raised €1.7 million in a pre-seed round led by Vireo Ventures with participation from Italian Founders Fund. According to Perrotta’s interview, the company went from managing zero to 2 GW of customer capacity in about one month, then reached 50 GW just 2 months later.
Before building the platform, the founders contacted more than 5,000 energy companies and spoke directly with around 500 industry professionals. That combination of European industrial expertise and Silicon Valley acceleration ultimately led the entire 8-person team to Mountain View, where a 10-minute Y Combinator interview opened another important chapter.
Yet Perrotta’s goal is not simply to move an Italian success story to America. He wants to bring knowledge back across the Atlantic and build a frontier AI company for energy from Italy.
His story reflects a particularly promising model for Italy–U.S. relations – Italian talent and industrial know-how connecting with America’s extraordinary innovation ecosystem, then using that experience to create technology, investment and opportunities on both sides of the Atlantic.
