Marco Bianchi 
Kanara was selected as the only Spanish company to receive the EIC Pre-accelerator grant from the European Innovation Council, receiving €499,000 in funding. The selection was highly competitive, with only 70 companies chosen from over 1,000 applications.
D-Orbit, an Italian spacetech scaleup, collaborated with Disney Italia to send a 3D-scanned replica of the Mandalorian helmet to orbit aboard the Wayfinder mission on March 30, 2026, launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base via SpaceX’s Falcon 9 as part of the Transporter-16 mission. The helmet was deployed at approximately 510 kilometers altitude in sun-synchronous orbit and captured unique images with Earth in the background using cameras developed internally by D-Orbit.
Milan-based legal AI company Lexroom raised $50 million in Series B funding led by Left Lane Capital. The company develops AI infrastructure for legal professionals using a proprietary database of over 6 million verified legal sources. The platform is used by over 8,000 law firms and corporate legal teams globally, with plans to expand across civil law jurisdictions in Europe starting with Spain and Germany.
Redis launched Redis Iris, a context and memory platform designed to replace RAG infrastructure for enterprise agentic AI. The platform addresses the structural problem that AI agents generate orders of magnitude more data requests than human users, requiring a different retrieval architecture. Iris includes data integration via CDC pipelines, semantic context retrieval with auto-generated MCP tools, agent memory capabilities, and Redis Flex storage engine running 99% of data on SSDs at sub-millisecond latencies.
Portuguese textile company Riopele announced a partnership with American designer John Varvatos to create a men’s fashion fabric collection inspired by textile heritage, vintage aesthetics, and craftsmanship. The collection will be presented at Milano Unica in July as Riopele prepares to celebrate its 100th anniversary. The collaboration aims to strengthen Riopele’s international presence, particularly in the North American market, where it already exports over 98% of its production to more than 50 countries.
Metro Mondego, the electric metrobus system serving Coimbra, Lousã, and Miranda do Corvo, reached one million validations since transitioning to a paid system. Demand exceeded expectations by 20%, with April validations up 57.4% from January. The Portuguese Government announced plans to expand the system to serve additional municipalities including Cantanhede and Condeixa-a-Nova, with integration planned around the upcoming high-speed rail station.
Ford Motor Company is in early-stage negotiations with multiple governments in North America and Europe to supply commercial vehicles and software technologies for defense and military needs. CEO Jim Farley confirmed ongoing discussions with the US government regarding defense-related requirements. The article also notes that European automakers Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen are similarly exploring defense sector production opportunities.
Pestana Hotel Group received 38 nominations at the World Travel Awards 2026 and World Golf Awards 2026. The nominations include 33 World Travel Awards and 5 World Golf Awards across properties in Portugal (Porto, Lisboa, Tróia, Algarve, Madeira, Porto Santo) and internationally (Spain, Netherlands, USA, Brazil, Venezuela, Morocco, and São Tomé and Príncipe). Notable nominations include Europe’s Leading Hotel Brand 2026 for the group overall, and multiple category nominations for properties like Pestana CR7 Times Square and Pestana CR7 Gran Vía Madrid.
ICO, through its venture capital subsidiary AXIS, has approved an investment of 3.67 million euros in KD, a Spanish microelectronics company focused on high-speed optical communications technology that enables reliable and efficient transmission of large data volumes in adverse environments
Matt Brittin, 57-year-old former Google executive who led the Europe-Middle East-Africa region for a decade and spent 18 years at Google before leaving in autumn 2024, officially took leadership of BBC as Director-General. He replaces Tim Davie, who resigned following controversy over editing of Donald Trump’s speech in a BBC documentary. Brittin assumes command during a challenging period as BBC plans to cut 2000 jobs and save 500 million pounds over two years due to financial pressures. The BBC also faces a 10 billion dollar defamation lawsuit from Donald Trump over the controversial documentary aired before the 2024 US presidential election, with trial scheduled for February 2027.