Italy VS Tech: OpenAI, Synth Foods, SIAE vs Meta - April 11, 2023

Kopjra, a legal/cybersec startup, raised €870k in a crowdfunding campaign led by Azimut.Azimut invested €40m in Alps Blockchain, an operator of sustainable mining farms, directly and by promoting a club deal. Oversonic robotics, a robot startup, raised an undisclosed amount from Cysero. IAG sold its stake in Ultroneo srl to Sistemi SpA.UnipolSai acquired DaVinci Salute.The Italian Garante della Privacy asked OpenAI to limit its ChatGPT service in Italy, allegedly for misusing the personal data of Italian people (while training its AI) and for allowing access to the service to kids younger than 13 years old. The Garante asked for corrective actions and threatened a €20m fine if the company does not comply. The Italian government is proposing new legislation to ban the production and distribution of lab-grown food in Italy.Fun fact: if the EU approved a producer of lab-grown food from some other EU country, this would be able to sell its products in Italy, because EU approval would have priority. Wesual, a visual content creation startup, raised €1.25m from CDP, LVenture, and Encelado Ventures.A few weeks ago, Meta removed all Italian music due to a dispute over licensing with SIAE.More recently, the Italian Antitrust agency opened an investigation against Meta.Meanwhile, Soundreef, a digital rights platform alternative to SIAE, restored access to a portion of its catalog to Meta users.