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MadeInAdd CEO: ‘The Companies Adopting 3D Printing Fastest Aren’t the Ones You’d Expect’

You might expect large corporations, with the budgets and engineering resources to match, to be the first in line when it comes to adopting “new” technologies like additive manufacturing. According to Andrea Gorlezza, CEO of MadeInAdd, the opposite is closer…

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You might expect large corporations, with the budgets and engineering resources to match, to be the first in line when it comes to adopting “new” technologies like additive manufacturing. According to Andrea Gorlezza, CEO of MadeInAdd, the opposite is closer to the truth: startups are outpacing established manufacturers, not because they have better access to the technology, but because they carry less weight from decades of using traditional engineering and manufacturing methods. MadeInAdd is a Milan-based AM platform that guides manufacturers through the full production journey, from design to finished part, across more than 50 additive technologies. We spoke to Gorlezza about where the barriers to adoption lie, how his company is working to dismantle them, and what role artificial intelligence plays in it all.

Why Italy’s Industrial Identity Maps Naturally onto AM

Andrea Gorlezza, CEO of MadeInAdd

Gorlezza comes from traditional manufacturing, with 25 years of experience in the automotive, oil and gas, marine, and machinery sectors. With this background, he can more easily understand the hurdles to AM adoption, because he knows where legacy manufacturers are coming from. Gorlezza became CEO of MadeInAdd in early 2025, the company itself being founded a few years earlier in 2022 via a combination of institutional and industrial investors. The original idea was to position MadeInAdd as an Italian champion of AM technology, with a systemic effect across many industries, first in Italy, and then on a global scale.

Last week, Milan Design Week invited designers across the country to display their craft. The MadeInAdd team took advantage of the opportunity by exhibiting at Milan Design Week for the first time. “There is a very strong link between design and additive,” Gorlezza said at the show. “If you think of additive from the beginning, then you can better design your products. We’d like to make this link somewhat touchable, or physically accessible.”