illy Foundry

A corporate start-up to design the future of coffee, matching the vision of enterprising talents with the capabilities of illy.

Blending Design Thinking with Lean Start-up

illy Foundry has been a joint-venture between our studio and illy, to study and act on innovation opportunities related to the coffee industry.

Started in 2015 with two hackathons in Menlo Park and Boston, illy Foundry focused its actions on the US market – bridging the heritage of a global food icon with the potential of high-tech and digital innovations.

President Andrea Illy, then CEO of illycaffè, launching the project with a call for talents.

More than 150 international designers and engineer applied to join the illy Foundry team in Trieste and San Francisco, and the project developed in a very short time an extended network of collaboration with start-ups and big tech companies.