AC Milan ruins Inter's treble bid with derby win to reach Italian Cup final

AC Milan hasn’t achieved much this season — except when playing city rival Inter Milan.

Milan ruined Inter’s bid for a treble and advanced to the Italian Cup final with a 3-0 derby win Wednesday courtesy of two goals from Luka Jovic.

It was Milan’s third win over Inter this season, having also beaten the Nerazzurri in the Italian Super Cup final in January.

“It was a very important game for us. As you know we are not that good in Serie A. We had to show the quality today. We had to show the character," Jovic said. "And we showed it and we are going to Rome.”

And if Milan can win another trophy, coach Sergio Conceicao might have a chance at keeping his job — despite the seven-time European champion sitting ninth in Serie A.

Winning the Italian Cup — which carries a Europa League berth — could be Milan's only route to a spot in continental play for next season.

Milan advanced on 4-1 aggregate following a 1-1 first leg.

Bologna brings a 3-0 lead over Empoli into the second leg of the other semifinal on Thursday.

The final is scheduled for May 14 in Rome.

Inter pressed forward early on and Federico Dimarco struck the crossbar in the 23rd. But Jovic put Milan ahead 13 minutes later with a powerful header and then doubled the advantage from close range shortly after the break.

Tijjani Reijnders added another for Milan in the 85th by finishing off a full team move.

“We have a lot of belief,” Reijnders said. “We have difficulties in the league but we know this is the fastest way to reach (Europe). And if we play like we did today we can win this trophy.”

It was Inter's second straight loss after the Serie A leader fell 1-0 at Bologna on Sunday. Inter will play Barcelona in the Champions League semifinals.

Juventus wasted a chance to move back into the Champions League places following a 1-0 loss at Parma in a rescheduled Serie A match.

Parma forward Mateo Pellegrino scored with a header in first-half stoppage time.

Juventus remained fifth, one point behind Bologna, with five rounds remaining.

Making matters worse for Juventus was that center forward Dusan Vlahovic came off at halftime with an apparent thigh issue.

Juventus was also in fifth place when it fired Thiago Motta last month and hired Igor Tudor as its new coach for the remainder of the season.

It was Juventus' first loss under Tudor, following two wins and a draw.

Cristian Chivu took over as Parma coach in February and the team is on a six-game unbeaten run that also includes a 2-2 draw with Serie A leader Inter Milan this month.

Parma-Juventus was one of four matches postponed from Monday due to the death of Pope Francis. Each game was preceded by a moment of silence to mourn the pope, who died Monday at 88.

Lazio leapfrogged city rival Roma and moved back into sixth place — level on points with Juventus — with a 2-0 win at 10-man Genoa.

Valentin Castellanos and Boulaye Dia scored for Lazio after Genoa defender Sebastian Otoa was shown a direct red card in his Serie A debut for pushing down Mattia Zaccagni.

The match was suspended briefly during the first half when flares lit by Genoa’s hard-core “ultra” fans covered the field in smoke.

Lazio also ended with 10 men when Reda Belahyane made a hard tackle late in the second half.

Also, eighth-place Fiorentina came back from a goal down for a 2-1 win at Cagliari with goals from Robin Gosens and Lucas Beltran; and Torino beat Udinese 2-0 with a first-half goal from Scotland forward Ché Adams and a late strike from Ali Dembele.

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

AC Milan's head coach Sergio Conceicao and Alessandro Florenzi celebrate after the Italian Cup semifinal second leg soccer match between Inter Milan and AC Milan at the San Siro stadium in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

AC Milan players celebrate after the Italian Cup semifinal second leg soccer match between Inter Milan and AC Milan at the San Siro stadium in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Players stand during the minute of silence for Pope Francis before the Italian Cup semifinal second leg soccer match between Inter Milan and AC Milan at the San Siro stadium in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

AC Milan's Luka Jovic scores during the Italian Cup semifinal second leg soccer match between Inter Milan and AC Milan at the San Siro stadium in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

AC Milan's Luka Jovic scores during the Italian Cup semifinal second leg soccer match between Inter Milan and AC Milan at the San Siro stadium in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

AC Milan's Luka Jovic reatcs after scoring during the Italian Cup semifinal second leg soccer match between Inter Milan and AC Milan at the San Siro stadium in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Inter Milan's Lautaro Martinez reacts during the Italian Cup semifinal second leg soccer match between Inter Milan and AC Milan at the San Siro stadium in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

AC Milan's Luka Jovic, front, celebrates after scoring during the Italian Cup semifinal second leg soccer match between Inter Milan and AC Milan at the San Siro stadium in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Fiorentina's Lucas Beltrán, center, celebrates scoring with teammates during the Serie A soccer match between Parma and Juventus at the Ennio Tardini Stadium, Parma, Italy, Wednesday April 23, 2025. (Gianluca Zuddas/LaPresse via AP)

Lazio's Taty Castellanos celebrates scoring during the Serie A soccer match between Genoa and Lazio at the Luigi Ferraris Stadium in Genoa, Italy. Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (Tano Pecoraro/LaPresse via AP)

Parma's Mateo Pellegrino celebrates scoring with the fans during the Serie A soccer match between Parma and Juventus at the Ennio Tardini Stadium, Italy, Wednesday April 23, 2025. (Paola Garbuio/LaPresse via AP)

Juventus' Dusan Vlahovic, left, and Parma's Giovanni Leoni in action during the Serie A soccer match between Parma and Juventus at the Ennio Tardini Stadium, Italy, Wednesday April 23, 2025. (Paola Garbuio/LaPresse via AP)

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan 11, 2026--

Torq, the established Agentic AI security operations pioneer, today announced it has closed a massive $140 million Series D funding round, propelling its valuation to $1.2 billion and total funding to $332M.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260112510774/en/

Led by Merlin Ventures —a leading cybersecurity fund renowned for its deep access to the U.S. commercial and Public Sector markets—with participation from all existing investors, including Evolution Equity Partners, Notable Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Insight Ventures Partners, and Greenfield Partners, this capital injection is a definitive investment in the future of security. Torq is driving the industry’s critical shift: the complete transformation of the Security Operations Center (SOC) through battle-tested AI Agents at enterprise scale.

The new funds will accelerate the adoption of the Torq AI SOC Platform, the only end-to-end solution built on the pillars of advanced Hyperautomation, Alert Triage, and Fatigue Reduction to deliver full operational autonomy for global enterprises and government agencies.

“Torq is redefining security operations,” said Shay Michel, Managing Partner, Merlin Ventures. “They’ve fused automation and human judgment into a new AI SOC Platform built for asymmetric threats and real-world scale. This is why Merlin is leading the investment. Our focus now is speed—accelerating go-to-market, expanding across commercial and government markets, and building the next global category leader in AI security operations.”

Torq Delivers On the Promise of the AI SOC

“This funding accelerates our mission to define and dominate the AI SOC market. We are moving far beyond the constraints of legacy SOAR and SIEM, harnessing the Agentic AI Era to deliver outcomes our customers rely on,” said Ofer Smadari, CEO and co-founder, Torq. “Global enterprise adoption of our AI SOC Platform has validated our vision for the future of security operations. We have achieved tremendous revenue growth, with Fortune 100 customers adopting our AI Agents in their SOCs for everything from investigation to response. Our partnership with Merlin Ventures is the definitive signal that Torq is now ready to scale this massive customer success into the high-stakes Federal and Public Sector markets.”

The Growth Engine: Massive AI Agent Adoption

The primary driver behind Torq’s 2025 growth is the unprecedented adoption of its AI Agents across its global customer base. Unlike legacy security tools that require extensive professional services, Torq AI Agents are designed for self-service, enabling security teams to build and deploy sophisticated agents with minimal effort.

Today, Torq AI Agents are deeply embedded in the daily operations of Fortune 500 SOCs, managing millions of complex security tasks autonomously. This "bottom-up" adoption has transformed Torq from a specialized tool into the primary platform for the modern SOC.

“Torq delivers fast, measurable value to Valvoline’s SOC and eliminates the manual tasks that once consumed our analysts’ time,” said Corey Kaemming, CISO, Valvoline. “Within 48 hours of deployment, our team was using Torq’s AI SOC Platform for automating phishing triage, accelerating alert handling, and reducing response times across the board. The results were transformative. Analysts reclaimed hours of time, containment actions became automatic, and the security team evolved from reactive responders to proactive strategists. Torq took the vision that was in our heads and actually put it into practice. My team is in love with Torq.”

Strategic Expansion Into the Federal Market

Torq's partnership with lead investor Merlin Ventures has accelerated Torq’s traction within the U.S. Federal and Public Sector markets. With nearly 30 years of success bringing technologies to the U.S. government market, Merlin Ventures provides Torq with the strategic support and deep government relationships necessary to navigate complex compliance requirements, including FedRAMP, and rapidly scale the Torq AI SOC Platform to protect the nation's most critical infrastructure.

Explosive Growth and Enterprise Maturity Validation

The Series D affirms Torq’s proven market traction and maturity. In 2025 alone, the company delivered significant customer expansion, demonstrating that the Torq AI SOC Platform is built for complex, multinational security environments. Torq now protects hundreds of multinational enterprises, including Marriott, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Siemens, Uber, and Virgin Atlantic.

Torq Leads the Shift To AI Agents: Autonomous Investigations and Advanced Automation

Torq is driving this transformation through its singular Agentic AI foundation. In 2025, Torq solidified its market lead by delivering the most advanced multi-agent security capabilities, backed by the strategic acquisition of RevRod. This proven platform empowers SOC teams through two critical product pillars:

“We’re always innovating our security operations approach at Virgin Atlantic and the Torq AI SOC Platform is driving significant benefits for us,” said John White, CISO, Virgin Atlantic. “Today, innovation stems from an AI-first approach, which Torq excels at. Torq is making our security operations simpler and more efficient, and providing us with complete coverage across our security stack. Torq is now our umbrella platform.”

About Torq

Torq is transforming cybersecurity with the Torq AI SOC platform. Torq empowers enterprises to instantly and precisely detect and respond to security events at scale. Torq’s customer base includes major multinational enterprise customers, including Abnormal Security, Armis, Check Point Security, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inditex (Zara, Bershka, and Pull & Bear), Informatica, Kyocera, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Siemens, Telefonica, Valvoline, Virgin Atlantic, and Wiz.

About Merlin Ventures

Merlin Ventures is the venture capital affiliate of Merlin Group, a network of companies with nearly 30 years of success bringing technologies to the U.S. government market. Merlin Ventures rapidly scales visionary companies and introduces disruptive solutions designed to help enterprises address today's most critical cybersecurity challenges. Its unique business model combines robust infrastructure and capital, technical advisory and engineering advisory, market readiness acceleration, and deep-rooted government and industry relationships that enable its portfolio to rapidly grow and scale. Learn more at merlin.vc.

Torq Secures $140M Series D at $1.2B Valuation to Lead the AI SOC and Agentic AI Era