Luxury travel has no infrastructure yet. AVÈIRE isready to fill this Blue Ocean.

An idea kept in a drawer until conditions were right. And a CEO who bet on the team before even reading the numbers. Antonio Canovese and Andrea Vecchiato tell the story of AVÈIRE.

Sixty-eight billion euros. That is the estimated size of luxury travel retail in Europe. A market that has existed for decades, moving enormous flows of money, and yet, in the part that matters most, the intermediated segment, it still runs on phone calls and WhatsApp. No system, no traceability, no shared digital infrastructure. Antonio Canovese saw it coming. Together with Roberto Da Re and Carlo Zuccon, they built AVÈIRE: a B2B2C platform designed to connect brands, hotels and professional operators around the high-spending traveller. Not a marketplace, an infrastructure. Andrea Vecchiato arrived later, with a different background, and understood immediately.

Antonio, Andrea: Who are you and where do you come from?

Antonio Canovese: I started as a consultant, installing the first American POS system in a Diesel boutique in Rome. From there, I worked my way through every layer of luxury retail tech from the inside: as a project manager, business unit head, and in sales and product strategy. For years, I managed accounts for brands like Moncler, Prada, Ferrari, Bulgari, and Versace. I co-founded Venistar in 2005 with Roberto Da Re and Carlo Zuccon, and in 2020, we sold it to the Retex Group. AVÈIRE grows out of a question I’ve carried around for years: why does such an important channel as luxury travel retail still lack dedicated infrastructure?
Andrea Vecchiato: My path is different; I come from the brand side, not from technology. I worked up to general management at multinational companies, Geox, Bata, and then led brands through transformation for private equity funds. When Roberto Da Re introduced me to the project, I immediately saw the potential: meaningfully extending the opportunities of physical retail for the high-spending traveller. But what convinced me more than any financial projection was the complementarity of this team. I bet on the people before I bet on the idea.

Antonio, you and your co-founders have known each other for thirty years. Venistar was your shared training ground. What did it leave you with?
Antonio Canovese: Fifteen years working from the inside with the great luxury brands, not as outside consultants, but embedded in their digital processes, understanding where the bottlenecks were, what was missing, what wasn’t working. That kind of deep understanding doesn’t come from industry reports. It accumulates day by day, client by client. And it’s that same understanding that lets us see the opportunity on which AVÈIRE is built. Carlo Zuccon, our CTO who builds the platform from the inside every single day, is part of the story. He didn’t arrive from the outside; he has been at the centre of the project from the very beginning.

Where does the idea of AVÈIRE come from? What were you seeing in the market that others weren’t?
Antonio Canovese: I was observing something that nobody seemed to want to consider: the HNWI/UHNI client travelling today is treated like any ordinary customer, despite having expectations, time constraints, needs and dynamics that are profoundly different. They might have only a few hours available, speak Arabic or Japanese, don’t know the local boutiques, and don’t have existing relationships. Everyone is trying to serve them: brands, boutiques, hotels, and intermediaries, but each does so independently, without shared tools. The personal stylist sends WhatsApp messages, the concierge makes phone calls. But the stock is invisible, and payments are chased for weeks.  How do we give this type of client a truly extraordinary shopping experience?  The idea matured at least five years ago, then COVID stopped everything, but now the conditions have aligned.

Andrea Vecchiato: What we understood is that we don’t need to create a new behaviour. Intermediated luxury has existed for decades:  it’s enormous, recognised, and structural. We need to bring collaborative infrastructure where infrastructure is currently missing.

Explain how it works in practice, as if you were speaking to someone with no knowledge of the sector.
Antonio Canovese: Let’s picture a couple of examples. 

An international couple in a five-star suite in Milan during Fashion Week. They receive an invitation to an exclusive event that same evening, unplanned. The lady wants a pair of elegant décolletés. Her husband needs a tailored tuxedo. The concierge opens the AVÈIRE app and immediately sees the options available at nearby boutiques. She chooses three models to try in the suite. The booking is closed with a pre-authorised amount. The try-on takes place in the suite that afternoon, arranged by the boutiques. For the suit, a personal stylist connected remotely selects a tuxedo from a Milanese tailor, together with the client. The client receives a payment link. The tailor arrives in the suite for measurements. The suit is ready by 7pm. The couple leaves for the event.

What happened behind the scenes: the clients never left the hotel. The concierge improvised nothing. The boutiques reached a client who would never have walked in on his own. Intermediary commissions are tracked and paid within 48 hours. The mechanism is invisible, but the experience is seamless.

Now, let’s shift to Monaco: a high-value client wants to organise a trunk show on his yacht for special guests during the Formula 1 Grand Prix. The personal stylist selects garments and accessories from three city-centre boutiques via AVÈIRE. The platform manages orders, delivery, pre-authorisation and payments. Unsold items return to the boutiques at the end of the event. It’s the same mechanism as the Milanese suite, just applied at a different scale. An event that could take weeks to organise becomes a straightforward operation.

How large is the market you’re entering?
Andrea Vecchiato: Over 68 billion euros, that is the estimated size of luxury travel retail in EMEA. The channel directly relevant to us — the intermediated segment — accounts for at least 20% of total transaction value. In the leading shopping capitals, this share rises significantly: between 40 and 65% of luxury transactions pass through professional intermediaries. In Milan, we’re around 40–50%, in Paris 45–55%, in Dubai over 55% (Source: Bain & Company · BCG · Global Blue). These are enormous revenue streams, managed today informally, outside any system whatsoever. 

We are not inventing a market; we are bringing infrastructure to where the market already exists.

Who is your typical client — and what do they really want?
Antonio Canovese: The travelling HNWI client seeks discovery, discretion, immediacy, and bespoke service. They don’t necessarily want the brands they already have at home. They seek the niche Florentine perfumery, the emerging designer, the heritage brand that doesn’t export. And they want all of this without leaving their suite. Once they experience the level of service offered by AVÈIRE partners, it becomes an expectation, and an exceeded expectation is the most powerful word-of-mouth driver in luxury.

Around this client orbit three distinct needs: the brand wants to govern the intermediated channel without losing control. The concierge wants to become indispensable to the client. The personal stylist wants to work without geographic constraints, without opaque stock, and without chasing payments. 

AVÈIRE answers all three. The client doesn’t even know AVÈIRE exists,  they simply live an outstanding, effortless experience, while for brands, hotels and personal stylists, opportunities multiply.

What is your business model?
Andrea Vecchiato: For brands, it is simple: no fixed costs, no risk. You pay only when a sale is made, with a fee on the transacted value. The main share goes to the operator who intermediated the sale — concierge, personal stylist — a portion goes to the payment processor, and a portion to AVÈIRE. It is important to note that brands already pay intermediaries and manage payments today, in forms that are more or less traceable. 

Aveire doesn’t add incremental costs, but brings order and transparency where there is confusion today. For hotels and personal stylists, it’s even simpler: no cost at all. 

For the first twelve Founding Brand Partners, the terms will be particularly advantageous.

You’re not a marketplace. What genuinely sets you apart?
Antonio Canovese: In luxury, there is a lot of talk about working together as a system in conferences, strategies, and interviews. Then, in practice, everyone acts alone. 

We have built something different: a collaborative platform where brands, hotels and personal shoppers work together without anyone having to give anything up. The brand stays in control: it controls the products, pricing, delivery, and direct contact with the end client. It cedes its image to no intermediary. The concierge and personal stylist remain the protagonists of the client relationship. AVÈIRE is the infrastructure that connects them.

Andrea Vecchiato: In a traditional marketplace, the brand loses control of its image, its price, and its service level. It has to hold dedicated stock, with all the associated risks of unsold inventory. With AVÈIRE, it’s the exact opposite: we use merchandise and staff already present in the boutique, increasing efficiency without adding costs or risks. There is one more element worth mentioning: in a marketplace, the brand knows what it sells. 

With AVÈIRE, it also knows what it didn’t sell: because a size was missing, because the price was out of line, because a competitor had it. That is information of inestimable value for brands.

There is a European regulation that changes the rules of the game from 2027. Can you walk us through it?
Antonio Canovese: Let’s start with a problem that already exists today, before we even talk about regulation. Every boutique in every city works with dozens of different personal shoppers and concierges. Each one has to be managed as a separate supplier: registry, invoicing, payments, disputes, and reminders. It’s an enormous administrative burden that almost nobody manages in a structured way. With AVÈIRE, we pay at source: a single flow, a single point of contact. The brand receives its net share with no additional overhead.

Then there is the regulatory dimension, which makes all of this even more urgent. The European anti-money laundering regulation requires brands, hotels, concierges and intermediaries to identify and trace every movement of money related to the purchase of luxury goods above a certain threshold. That means linking every commission to a specific transaction and an identified client,  bringing together three different parties: the client, the brand, the intermediary. 

AVÈIRE does this automatically, through Adyen. Every transaction is tracked and auditable. From July 2027, this will be the only way to continue operating legally through intermediaries. It’s not the reason AVÈIRE exists,  but it’s a clock that is running, and those who don’t adapt in time will be left out.

You are a tech platform in 2026. How do you use AI?
Antonio Canovese: In luxury, technology must not be visible. The HNWI client doesn’t want to feel profiled by an algorithm. They want to be understood by someone they trust. We have deliberately chosen to keep AI behind the scenes, in service of the operators. The concierge doesn’t search for “décolleté” through a filter-based catalogue: they describe what the client asked for verbally or in writing — “an evening décolleté with crystals, pink, 12cm heel”,  and the platform surfaces the three models available in nearby boutiques that match exactly. The AI is there, but nobody sees it. There is a virtual try-on that helps the personal stylist show how a garment would look on a silhouette similar to the client’s, before arranging a fitting. There are matching tools between the client profile and stock availability.

But what the client perceives is not an artificial intelligence experience: it’s their concierge who knows them well and always finds what they want. This is the right position. The AI that truly delivers is not the one that makes itself seen; it’s the one that makes the people working with it more effective.

Where are you now? Tell us about the current phase of the project.
Antonio Canovese: The facts: the platform is already in production. We did not present ourselves to the founding brand partners with a mock-up or a demo, we wanted their validation to be of something real, operational, testable from day one. 

We already have the first brand and hotel partners on board, and we are working with them on the final calibration tests. Adyen and Global Blue — two reference players in international payments and tax-free — are integrated into the platform. They typically work with large, established merchants: the fact that they believed in AVÈIRE before the platform was even on the market is a very important signal for us. The official launch is planned for between September and October in Milan (date to be confirmed), with the goal of bringing at least twelve Founding Brand Partners on board by the end of October.

Andrea, you are the only member of the team without the shared thirty-year history. How did you join, and what convinced you?
Andrea Vecchiato: I came across the project through Roberto Da Re. And I immediately understood that the value lay not only in the idea — but in the team. Antonio saw the opportunity first and waited until the market context made it genuinely viable. Carlo Zuccon has an absolutely unique command of technology and processes. Roberto has entrepreneurial credibility and business vision built over decades; he opens doors that others simply cannot get near. And they have already built and sold a company together. When you find a team with that combination, and an idea that solves a real problem in a market worth tens of billions, it doesn’t take long to decide. The complementarity with Antonio is what works: he has the vision and the relationships, and I bring the operational execution capability. 

What is the geographic roadmap?
Andrea Vecchiato: Milan first,  for the density of brands, reference hotels, international events and clientele. Then Rome, Venice and Florence, within the context of the Grand Tour. 

In 2027, we will move beyond Italy, with Paris and London as primary targets. 

In 2028, the Middle East: Dubai, Riyadh, Doha. The goal is to reach thirty shopping capitals by 2030. The logic is always the same: a relevant destination, an international event, reference hotels, brands with a local presence, and professional personal stylists. 

AVÈIRE is fully SaaS, no local offices, warehouses or physical structures needed in each new city. What each new destination requires is relationships. And relationships are our raw material. The feedback from the Milan launch will give us the foundation to present at the eLuxury Summit in Lausanne in November (TBC), organised by D’Agorà, with concrete data in hand, not just a promise.

A final message to those reading who might be partners or investors.
Antonio Canovese: For thirty years, I have watched the most valuable client in luxury,  the one travelling, treated like any ordinary customer. 

AVÈIRE was built to serve exactly this client, as they deserve. We are not asking brands, hotels and personal stylists to change the way they work. We are helping them operate together better, with an infrastructure that finally makes it genuinely possible. 

Whoever enters now is not betting on an idea; they are joining something operational with the platform already ready, partners already on board, and a regulation that in 2027 will make this system necessary for the entire sector. This is the first luxury ecosystem dedicated to the high-spending traveller, and it is ready now.

Andrea Vecchiato: We are not just building a platform; we are shaping the way luxury in travel will tell its story over the next ten years. And it is a privilege to be doing this with this team, at this moment.

AVÈIRE is currently in go-to-market phase. The website is launching shortly. For partnership and co-investment enquiries: antonio.canovese@aveire.com