Andrea Caiazzo, ventures and open innovation leader at Stellantis Ventures, is one of our top 50 Rising Stars in corporate venturing for 2026.
Andrea Caiazzo invests on behalf of automotive manufacturer Stellantis’s corporate venture arm, but he is a mechanical engineer by training and has been at the group for more than a decade. It should come as no surprise that he is a car guy.
“Before becoming an investor, I had a very deep knowledge of what the industry is, the technology we work with and how a car needs to be built,” he says.
“I am very curious and that is a great plus for an investor, because I usually go beyond what is just the pitch deck. I like to get a lot of guidance about the technology that we are investing in.”
Caiazzo inherited a passion for motorcycles from his father, and that interest grew into engines and then cars. He used to be a project manager, working on propulsion systems for group company Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, but pursued a long-held passion for finance and strategy by going back to university in 2021 to earn his MBA.
“Being an investor means you need to evaluate a lot of things. But, first of all, you have to evaluate the capability of execution and the motivation of people.”
Caiazzo got in touch with Stellantis Ventures while doing his MBA thesis, which led to him working with the unit on special projects and eventually led to a permanent role. He now specialises in AI, software and cybersecurity as ventures and open innovation leader, and gets to explore everything on the horizon of autotech.
“You have to constantly work with new technology, always on different projects,” he says. “And you get to know what is happening in the most innovative fields of the automotive industry. To me, that is very stimulating from an intellectual point of view.”
And while Caiazzo has enough knowledge to know whether he can trust the technology he is looking at, he says learning how to trust the right founders is even more important.
“Being an investor means you need to evaluate a lot of things,” he says. “But, first of all, you have to evaluate the capability of execution and the motivation of people.”
The Rising Stars are early-career corporate venture professionals who are making an outstanding contribution to their teams and the industry.
See the full list of Rising Stars 2026 here.
