Marco Bianchi 
Italian startup Bending Spoons announced it will acquire collaborative whiteboard platform Miro for $1.355 billion, planning to invest heavily in product performance and long‑term growth.
Spanish travel‑tech startup Perk raised a $300 million private credit facility in the first half of 2026, providing capital for product and AI development as well as international expansion, notably launching its expense‑management solution in the US.
Italian food‑safety startup Biorsaf secured €5.2 million in a funding round led by P101 SGR and bought Bologna‑based RegTech platform Cooki. The combined entity will offer the first end‑to‑end AI‑driven solution for food compliance, traceability, labeling and cost analysis across Italy’s food, workplace and water safety sectors, aiming to grow from 40 to 120 employees and expand its user base beyond 10,000 active users.
PodcastPortal.nl, a knowledge platform for podcasts, added WeAreTellers as its third founding partner to strengthen its production and marketing capabilities for branded video podcasts.
The article features an interview with DEITTA, a European startup, discussing its philosophy that data privacy and the economic use of data can coexist. DEITTA emphasizes that businesses should focus on acquiring the appropriate data to gain insights into consumer behavior rather than collecting massive amounts of data, and that this can be achieved through direct consumer interaction.
Italian Minister of Agriculture Francesco Lollobrigida announced that the baby‑food brand Plasmon, owned for 62 years by Kraft Heinz, has been reacquired by the Italian company NewPrinces, highlighting the return of quality Italian food production to national ownership.
VDS revealed the 25 startups that will battle for the title of Best Startup of VDS 2026, with the final event scheduled for 21-22 October in Valencia, Spain.
Carme Artigas joins Nazca Capital as Operating Partner to lead its new Technology Committee and boost its investment strategy in deep‑tech and dual‑use technologies, enhancing digital transformation and AI capabilities.
StreamZilla, a former early‑stage video CDN, is being relaunched by Jet‑Stream as a European‑sovereign video‑hosting service that complies with EU regulations (WCAG 2.2 AA, GDPR, SEAL). Hosted on Dutch Leaseweb infrastructure and using an open‑source Whisper model for on‑premise subtitles, the service aims at organisations of up to 500 employees with a free tier and low‑cost paid plans, positioning itself as a compliant, affordable alternative to Vimeo and YouTube.
VirtuaBroker provides payment infrastructure services for enterprises, exchanges, brokers, fintechs and digital platforms, enabling integration through APIs and automated currency conversion.