Antitrust Watch: Italy’s antitrust authority has opened a formal review of Intesa Sanpaolo’s bid to take over Monte dei Paschi (MPS), checking whether the deal could reduce competition in banking and insurance—especially in deposit markets and in lending to small businesses across multiple provinces. Startup Funding: Rome-based cybersecurity startup Exein just raised $270M at a $1.7B valuation to secure robots, vehicles and other “physical AI” machines, after earlier rounds and rapid growth in attacks it says it now blocks at machine speed. SME & VC Ecosystem: WMF – We Make Future opened its 2027 startup Calls, positioning a year-round network to connect founders and innovative SMEs with investors, corporates and growth opportunities. AI Adoption in Italy: Anthropic appointed Mattia Gamberoni as Country Manager for Italy to help businesses, startups and researchers implement Claude models. Food Innovation: Loacker teamed up with Danish bean-free chocolate startup Endless Food Co to develop and scale bean-free chocolate, backed by Loacker’s corporate VC program. Agritech Expansion: Italian xFarm Technologies acquired Sibium Analytics in Brazil to serve sugarcane mills with geospatial intelligence and ESG management, covering most of Brazil’s sugarcane area.