This time in the spotlight: the story of Fabio Ferrara and Alchemyx

Mar 7

5 min read

Updated: 4 hours ago

Fabio Ferrara, CEO and founder of Alchemyx, AI-powered multichannel advertising platform for SMEs

Fabio Ferrara spent fifteen years watching small and medium businesses get left out of the advertising revolution. They abandoned radio, television and outdoor media not because those channels stopped working, but because the only platforms offering self-service autonomy were Google and Meta.

The gap was obvious and nobody was filling it, because nobody had a reason to. So he decided to be the one who would.

IN SHORT

If you have two minutes and not the whole article.

Fifteen years in media planning, spent watching the same problem go unsolved.
The channels never stopped working: they stopped being buyable without an agency.
AI agents made it solvable, because a planner's workflow can now be executed by software.
Alchemyst LAB was founded in Milan in 2025. The platform is in its test phase, with launch in Italy planned for the first quarter of 2027.

From spectator to founder

Ferrara's career reads like a front-row seat to every technological disruption of the last two decades. He watched brick phones give way to smartphones, Blockbuster collapse under Netflix, ISDN die so broadband could live. He was there when YouTube changed video, when streaming ended the CD, when artificial intelligence went from an academic curiosity to a household word.

Every single time, from the sidelines.

His own work was media planning, the unglamorous backbone of advertising. Briefings with small business clients, spreadsheets, phone calls, proposals. Days of grinding to build a plan that would be presented and, sometimes, run. When digital advertising exploded he noticed something odd: small businesses did not prefer Google and Meta because those channels worked better. They preferred them because they could do it themselves. No proposal, no waiting. Log in, set a budget, see what happens.

The gap nobody wanted to close

What he could not accept was the conclusion everyone else had drawn. Radio still works. Television still works. Cinema still holds a room. Outdoor still reaches people on their way somewhere. Those channels never stopped being effective. They stopped being reachable on the same self-service terms Google had made ordinary.

How do you compete with self-service? And yet these channels still work beautifully. I could not accept that the only way in was the old model: proposals, slow timelines, minimums nobody could meet.

The market problem was in plain sight. Large media structures are built around national budgets, and a local business ticket does not fit their process. The big platforms have no incentive to help anyone buy offline. No player gained anything from solving it, which meant nobody would, which meant it stayed broken.

Then the agents arrived

Ferrara has always been an early adopter. He downloaded the first chatbots, played with voice interfaces, went down the AI rabbit hole. What struck him was not the chatbot but what came after it: agents. Systems that reason, plan and carry out multi-step work on their own, breaking a complex process into coordinated actions.

That was the moment it clicked.

I have watched every technological revolution from the outside. Mobile, the internet, streaming, AI. But this time I am sitting on a real market problem, one I have understood for fifteen years, and I can see the way to solve it. What if, for once, I step inside instead of watching from the gallery?

The idea was to automate the expert planner's workflow: read a brief, choose the mix of channels, book and buy the space, adapt the materials, measure the outcome. All of it embedded in agents that orchestrate the process across digital and traditional media, end to end, without a human bottleneck at every step.

In 2025 he founded Alchemyst LAB Srl in Milan as an innovative startup. Davide Catalano joined as co-founder and CTO, to turn the vision into architecture. Together they built Alchemyx.

Where things stand

The MVP was completed and deployed in July 2026, and the test phase opened in September. Applications for early access are open and places are assigned by selection, because the point of the phase is a controlled number of businesses whose campaigns actually fit what is being tested. Alchemyx is pre-revenue: the companies taking part will be the first paying clients among the participants, running real campaigns on their own budgets with the platform fee waived for the duration.

Market launch in Italy is planned for the first quarter of 2027. The platform has been covered by Engage, Youmark, Daily Online, Media Key, Close Up Media and Rassegna Business.

The bottom line

Small businesses did not walk away from traditional media because it stopped working. They walked away because self-service did not exist there. Alchemyx is a bet that the gap is an opportunity, and that agents can open multichannel advertising the way search advertising was opened twenty years ago. If the bet is right, it is a genuine restructuring of a market. And for the first time in his career, Ferrara is not watching it from the gallery.

Frequently asked questions

Who is Fabio Ferrara?

CEO and founder of Alchemyst LAB Srl, the company behind Alchemyx. He spent over fifteen years in media planning and advertising in the Italian and European markets, working with small businesses across traditional and digital channels. That career is where the market gap he is now addressing became visible to him.

What is Alchemyst LAB Srl?

An innovative startup registered in Milan, incorporated in July 2025 by Fabio Ferrara, Davide Catalano and Carmen Greco. The company develops Alchemyx, the AI platform that plans, books and buys multichannel advertising for small and medium businesses across both digital and traditional media.

Why did he start Alchemyx?

Because of a pattern he kept seeing: small businesses chose self-service platforms for the autonomy, while radio, local TV, connected TV, cinema and outdoor stayed locked behind agency relationships, high minimums and rate cards nobody publishes. No large player had a reason to change that. When agents made it possible to automate expert media planning, the path to changing it appeared.

When does Alchemyx launch?

The MVP was completed and deployed in July 2026. A closed test phase with a selected group of businesses runs from September 2026. Market launch in Italy is planned for the first quarter of 2027, followed by other European markets.

Can a business still apply for early access?

Yes. Applications are open and places are assigned by selection, not first come first served, because the test phase needs a controlled number of businesses whose campaigns match what is being validated. Participants run real campaigns on their own budgets with the platform fee waived for the duration.