Italian quantum software startup Algorithmiq, founded by physicist Sabrina Maniscalco, just closed an €18M round and relocated its global HQ from Helsinki to Milan — the largest quantum bet in Italian history and the first full-startup reshoring case, co-led by CDP. The hosts reframe the brain drain reversal as a "magnet effect," comparing the deal's pull on PhDs and operators to SpaceX in LA, DeepMind in London, and Spotify/Klarna in Stockholm. They unpack Algorithmiq's contrarian thesis: while the US and China pour capital into quantum hardware, Algorithmiq attacks the software and error-correction layer — proving it by beating Stanford, Harvard, and Oxford teams in a $2M quantum chemistry challenge tied to cancer research. The conversation pivots to Weedoo's €21M round to scale an AI agent platform for Italian SMBs across marketing, sales, and operations, backed solely by Azimut's private equity vehicle ICF3 (Impresa Crescita 3). The episode closes on the EIC Scaling Club — Brussels' explicit "unicorn conversion funnel" of ~120 companies that have collectively raised €3.4B — which just admitted three Italian names: Energy Dome, Cellply, and Caracol, mapping cleanly to energy, biotech, and advanced manufacturing. Energy Dome's parallel commercial agreement with Google links the story into the broader hyperscaler CapEx wave reshaping the European energy stack, with all three threads pointing in the same direction: Italian deep tech increasingly plugged into international capital and strategic supply chains.

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