Innovation labs are increasingly used to connect firms, universities, technology providers and local institutions around experimentation, knowledge sharing and digital transformation. However, less is known about how innovation labs orchestrate innovation when they operate not as isolated corporate laboratories, but as membership-based collaborative infrastructures serving a network of firms. This paper investigates this issue through an exploratory qualitative case study of Intellimech, an Italian private consortium for mechatronics and industrial innovation located in the Kilometro Rosso innovation district in Bergamo. Drawing on publicly available documentary evidence, including Intellimech’s institutional webpages, statute, project descriptions and published case histories, the paper conceptualizes Intellimech as an innovation lab and intermediary that transforms distributed technological needs into shared learning opportunities, pre-competitive projects, open innovation initiatives and firm-level experimentation. The findings identify five orchestration mechanisms: need sensing and challenge framing; shared knowledge creation and absorptive capacity building; pre-competitive experimentation; boundary spanning across firms, universities and institutional actors; and translation of shared knowledge into firm-specific pilots and organizational routines. Examples such as AIxLAB, the Knowledge Management Cluster, Watchman, Harmony, Shop4cf/Warning and other mechatronics projects show how the lab logic can reduce the cost and uncertainty of innovation for firms while supporting knowledge circulation within a territorial ecosystem. The paper contributes to research on innovation labs, open innovation and knowledge management by showing that innovation orchestration is not limited to coordinating technological projects, but also involves the design of social, cognitive and organizational conditions that allow firms to learn collectively and innovate individually. The study also provides managerial implications for local ecosystems that seek to build sustainable innovation capacity through shared research, mentoring, training, technology scouting and pilot projects. Limitations concern the reliance on secondary public sources; future research should integrate interviews with Intellimech managers and member companies.