TALPA-Inspection: The Venture Leader Technology monitoring structures with AI

02.03.2026 16:00, Rita Longobardi

Meet Federico Martinelli-Orlando, co-founder of TALPA. The engineering startup provides the first layer of infrastructure intelligence to solve the silent failure of global assets caused by corrosion. Federico and the other nine Swiss National Technology Team members will fly to Silicon Valley in April.

Name: Federico Martinelli-Orlando
Location: Zurich
Nationality: Italian
Graduated from: ETH Zurich
Prior role: PostDoc at ETH Zurich
Founding team members: 2
Number of employees: 6
Money raised: 0 CHF


What does your product or solution do, and what makes it unique?
At TALPA-Inspection, we developed a patented contactless sensor technology that measures the same corrosion values traditionally obtained through physical contact on reinforced concrete, but without ever touching the surface. Mounted on drones or robots, it is the only technology that can automate this inspection at the scale the market demands, 10x faster, no scaffolding, no lane closures, no downtime. The data feeds into our digital platform, the first layer of infrastructure intelligence, where all information for structure management, every inspection, every sensor, every year, is stored in one place, turning scattered reports into actionable 3D digital twins.
 

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What trend or shift in your industry is currently creating the biggest opportunity for you?
The world's concrete infrastructure is aging out. Most structures were built between 1960 and 1980 and have now exceeded their 50-year design life. This hits every sector, including bridges, dams, nuclear plants, and mining facilities. Globally, corrosion costs USD 2.5 trillion per year, yet inspection methods haven't changed in decades. Governments and industrial operators are being forced to shift from reactive repairs to predictive maintenance, and they need better tools to measure at scale and better management platforms for their portfolio to do it.

How did the idea for your startup originate?
The idea came out during other experiments in the lab with the first version of our contactless sensor technology. Once we realized the potential of measuring corrosion with a water stream through air, we shifted our focus to robotic inspection to democratize how corrosion assessment is done, making it faster, safer, and accessible at scale.

Which market are you addressing, and what potential do you see for your startup in that market?
We address the USD 4B NDT and corrosion inspection market, expanding into the USD 18B digital twin and asset management space, tackling an issue that costs over USD 2.5 trillion globally every year, a figure that has only grown since it was last measured in 2016. The US is our priority expansion market, with massive federal investment in infrastructure and energy sectors where operational downtime costs millions per day. We're not a conventional robotics company; we come from years of corrosion research and field inspection experience. We deeply understand the degradation process and how to identify critical areas. Our goal is to make this expertise accessible at scale through robotic systems and support infrastructure management with our know-how.

What impact do you want your technology to have five years from now?
We want every major infrastructure owner to have a living digital twin of their assets, not scattered PDFs in filing cabinets or data scattered on a multitude of platforms. In five years, TALPA technology should be the standard method used for corrosion assessment, and the platform where inspection data becomes decision-grade intelligence, preventing catastrophic failures and saving billions in emergency repairs.

What major challenges have you faced so far?
Convincing a deeply traditional industry to trust a fundamentally new measurement approach and a new way to store and manage data. Infrastructure inspection hasn't changed in decades: the same manual tools, the same slow processes, the same standardized reports ending up in archives or filing cabinets.

What motivates you on tough days?
The startup journey is uphill by nature; you need resilience to make it happen. On a hard day, doing some sport and spending time at home with my pets and family reminds me why I'm doing this and that I can't give up so easily. I've studied corrosion for many years. When you understand how concrete deteriorates, you can't unsee it. Infrastructure needs attention right now. I feel a deep responsibility to do something about it, as I believe what we have built can contribute to helping the system. We have the technology to change how the world manages its structures, and that's not something you walk away from on a hard day.

Why did you decide to join the Venture Leaders Roadshow, and what are you most excited about?
The US is our primary international growth market. The Venture Leaders Roadshow gives us direct access to US investors, potential partners, and customers in a way that's impossible to replicate from Switzerland. I'm most excited about validating our go-to-market strategy with people who know the US infrastructure ecosystem and building the relationships that will help our market entry.