Italy has rediscovered Matteo Achilli thanks to Emma-5, a chatbot made available to users on the web. The project was not born with the idea of challenging giants like OpenAi and Anthropic, and their Chatgpt and Claude, but to offer food for thought on the sovereignty of now fundamental technologies. Despite the noble intent, Emma-5 generated more hilarity than awareness among users. This is because of his mistakes, meaningless and sometimes dangerous answers: all attributable to his limited technical abilities. It is the parable of Matteo Achilli, the Italian Zuckerberg, as he was renamed, and of his Egomnia, an IT company that has a turnover of 1.2 million euros but lost 221 thousand euros in 2025.
“Vodka on an empty stomach” and “immigrants at home”: we tried Emma, the first Italian “sovereign” AI (already suspended)
Fame
It was 2012 when Panorama Economy dedicated the front page of the magazine to him and defined him as “Italian Zuckerberg”, in reference to the creator of Facebook. Achilli founded his startup at the age of 20, precisely on March 7, as he writes on his social media. It’s called Egomnia and it wants to help young people like him find work thanks to an algorithm that sorts their CVs in a meritocratic way. A platform halfway between Facebook and Linkedin where companies can register and open positions, more of an ad site than a social network.
His father Remo helps him find 10 thousand euros to pay the algorithm developer, professional programmers had asked him for 100 thousand euros. Achilli dedicates himself to his creation and abandons his studies at Bocconi. He will obtain a three-year degree from the UNINETTUNO online university only in June 2025, with a thesis on the listing of his Egomnia. The idea of that enthusiastic 20-year-old garners the sympathies and hopes of many observers: BBC in 2014 he dedicated a space to him in the column “The next billionaires”, Business insider in 2015 places him as the third “most powerful” under 30 (outside the podium were people like Taylor Swift, Malala, PewDiePie and Jennifer Lawrence). In 2017 Rai cinema also produced a film inspired by his story, The startup. But after this wave of initial success, Achilli’s name disappeared from the media radar.
How is the company doing?
It is Wired, with an article written by Luca Zorloni, that raised the first doubts about Egomnia in 2017. Beyond the subscribers and customers mentioned, including Vodafone, Generali, World economic forum and Ericcson (we will return to this later), the company does not seem to convince the market. Nonetheless, in 2024 Achilli managed to list his startup on the stock exchange, also thanks to subsidies from the Ministry of Economic Development (Made in Italy, sorry) which recognizes over 180 thousand euros in tax credit in 2025. Today one of his shares (Egn) is worth 50 cents. An incredibly stable price – since its arrival on the stock exchange – which also derives from the fact that Achilli, president of the Board of Directors of Egomnia, holds the majority of the shares: 750 thousand multiple voting shares and 4.25 million ordinary shares out of the 5,507,500 into which the share capital is divided. It is therefore a security that is substantially free of trade, which does not make a price on the market and which is substantially illiquid. Most of the “float” is in the hands of the investment fund Nimbus capital fund Ltd.
Furthermore, the 2025 budget describes a situation far from the enthusiasm of the first years on Egomnia. As highlighted in the attached report, the value of production stood at 1.8 million euros, down 8 percent compared to 2.04 million in 2024. The year closed with a loss of 221 thousand euros, while in 2024 there was a profit of 74 thousand euros. The net worth raises further doubts about the state of the company: from 524 thousand euros it has dropped to 302 thousand. At the end of 2025, overall liquid assets had fallen to 18,731 euros, of which 18,652 in bank accounts and 79 euros in cash.
But the most striking chapter is the one concerning debts. If you add those due within the following financial year to banks (596,731), to suppliers (173,189), to tax authorities (205,500), to social security and social security institutions (80,175) and in the other category (195,156), it exceeds 1.25 million euros. Furthermore, from 2023 to 2024 Egomnia received VAT warnings from the Revenue Agency.
It should be highlighted that in the 2025 financial year the company was able to benefit from public financing and tax breaks. The company, under the item “Other revenues and income”, budgets part of the 2024 Ipo bonus (tax credit on consultancy for going public) and the portion relating to 2025. In June 2025 the company obtained a tax credit equal to just over 180 thousand euros after submitting the application to the Ministry of Business for the benefit dedicated to SMEs that go public. Just over 17 thousand euros also came from the credit for research and development expenses from the 2019 Mise tender which guaranteed “financial resources for interventions in favor of large research and development projects”. Egomnia was then awarded a contract with Cassa Depositi e Prestiti for the development and maintenance of reporting software
However, further financial relief will come with two three-year contracts awarded with Ericsson – a Swedish multinational among the world leaders in the supply of communication, software and ICT infrastructure services – called EHC and Core. The first started in November 2025, and the second was due to start in January 2026. Remo Achilli worked at Ericsson for 23 years, dealing, among other things, with network support and national security. In 2025, father and son received compensation, as directors, amounting to 173 thousand euros to which must be added the rent of a garage for storage and archiving use, the office and expense reports. The total thus reaches 198,312 euros, a number close to the loss recorded (221 thousand euros). This is not to say that the result for the closed financial year derives from the compensation of the directors, but only to highlight a fact that can be deduced from the financial statements.
Finally, the budget report makes it known that new revenues are arriving thanks to the “Intelligent factory, agrifood, life sciences” tender promoted by the Ministry of Business and awarded in 2022. Some of the costs incurred so far will therefore be repaid by a non-repayable contribution of 673 thousand euros and by a subsidized loan of 541 thousand euros. So much so that in the months of January and February 2026 alone, the company recorded an increase in turnover of 66 percent compared to the same period of the previous financial year
The best days for Egomnia and Achilli now seem behind us. Perhaps this is why the former Italian Zuckerberg launched himself into the world of artificial intelligence, despite himself making all of Italy laugh. This time, however, no one will dare call him the Sam Altman or the Dario Amodei of us.
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