The hosts start by reviewing how Italian startup funding is rebounding toward €1.5B and why that matters versus previous years. They then dive into Bending Spoons’ $500M acquisition of Eventbrite at roughly a 90% premium, unpacking why a flat-revenue, legacy events platform can still be a powerful margin-optimization play. The conversation moves to Shop Circle’s $100M credit facility and how “acquire, optimize, hold” might become a distinctly European scaling archetype, different from hyperscale VC rounds. They debate whether debt-backed acquisition platforms can become a true alternative to traditional venture capital for profitable but non-hyperscaling companies stuck in “European limbo.” From there, the episode shifts into the future of SEO in an AI-first world, contrasting monitoring tools with execution platforms powered by agents. The guests argue that agent-driven execution is far stickier than pure analytics, because it embeds directly into creators’ and brands’ workflows. Finally, they highlight ontology and structured, machine-readable brand memory as the real long-term moat for SEO in an era where AI agents, not humans, increasingly navigate the web.

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