A Small Country With a Big Playbook: How Slovenia Is Rethinking Startup Internationalisation
Slovenia’s national business agency SPIRIT has rolled out a systematic internationalisation programme, highlighted by a 30‑person delegation to ViennaUP 2026. The delegation brings 12 high‑growth startups—including ReCatalyst, Trivial Group and Alpdev—alongside eight angel investors and ministry officials to pitch at Connect Day and the CEE Innovation Forum, targeting the CEE‑DACH corridor where early traction is strongest. Building on earlier trips to Web Summit and Startup Grind, the effort pairs mandatory pitch training with structured post‑event reporting to make the ecosystem visible to capital‑rich investors. One client of Trivial Group projects annual savings of nearly €1 million (≈$1.08 million), while Alpdev generated €20–30 k (≈$21.6k–$32.4k) monthly revenue in five months.
BlackPeak Capital Backs Croatia’s Fasal Bio with €7M to Scale Renewable Materials Platform
Croatian renewable‑materials startup Fasal Bio secured a €7 million ($7.6 million) investment from Bulgarian BlackPeak Capital, marking the fund’s final deployment from its SE Growth Equity Fund I. The capital will expand production of the company’s Naturion™ platform, a drop‑in renewable composite that...
Google Veteran Joins Bulgarian AdScout to Tackle “Trust Tax”
Google veteran Lachezar Atanasov has joined Bulgarian adtech scale‑up AdScout as Head of AI Product. He aims to eliminate the industry’s “Trust Tax” by building autonomous orchestration infrastructure that amplifies authentic human advocacy. Leveraging his experience launching Google DeepMind’s GenAI...
Polish Warsaw Equity Group Leads €5M Series A Alongside Porsche Ventures
Polish investment firm Warsaw Equity Group led a €5 million (≈ $5.45 million) Series A round in German EV‑charging tech company &Charge, with Porsche Ventures and existing backers InnoEnergy and Redstone also participating. The funding aims to close the data gap in Europe’s fragmented...
CEE Startup & Tech Weekly: Two Polish Startups Raise Fresh Funding
Polish AI‑focused startups Replenit and Graftcode announced fresh funding rounds, with Replenit closing a $2.5 million pre‑seed round and Graftcode raising €2.1 million, bringing its total to €6.5 million. Both companies aim to accelerate product launches—Replenit’s real‑time retail decision engine and Graftcode’s low‑code...
Seed Is the New Growth
European limited partners are shifting away from traditional growth‑stage venture funds toward seed‑stage AI‑native startups, driven by a collapse in late‑stage capital and the rapid efficiency gains AI delivers. Late‑stage VC funding in Europe fell 66% between 2021 and 2023,...
Bulgarian Codery Acquires Elfshock to Launch AI Automation Division in Southeast Europe
Bulgarian‑founded Codery announced the acquisition of Elfshock, a specialist in robotic process automation for financial services, creating the new Codery Automations division across Southeast Europe. Elfshock’s platform, now under Codery, has deployed more than 400 digital employees that deliver an...
Why Specialized AI Is Winning in 2026
Vertical, industry‑specific AI is poised to dominate value creation in 2026 as firms embed narrow models into core workflows. Investors are shifting away from concentrated horizontal model labs toward diversified vertical niches in legal, finance and procurement, where funding is...
Defense Tech Under Legal Scrutiny: How Regulation Is Reshaping Startup Investments in Europe
European defense technology is experiencing a rapid funding surge, now representing 6.2% of the continent’s venture‑capital market and attracting more than €1 billion (about $1.1 billion) in capital. New EU export‑control rules, the NIS2 directive and the upcoming Cyber Resilience Act have...
Are Energy Communities the Next “Booking” For Electricity?
Nobile, founded by former lawyer Lorena Skiljan, operates a digital platform that matches local renewable producers with nearby consumers in 15‑minute intervals, effectively creating energy‑community marketplaces. The model promises up to 60 % savings on grid fees and often eliminates electricity taxes...
Why Europe’s Deep Tech Startups Struggle to Scale And What Actually Works
Europe’s deep‑tech sector is drawing record investment—€17.6 billion ($19 billion) projected for 2025—but many startups still fail to scale due to fragmented ecosystems. The D2XCEL programme, which supported 102 ventures across two cohorts, showed that targeted ecosystem integration, mentorship, and investor access...
CEE Startup & Tech Weekly: Europe’s First M&A Deal Led by an AI-Native Advisory
Eilla AI closed Europe’s first M&A transaction led entirely by an AI‑native advisory, facilitating White Pearl Technology Group’s acquisition of CreateX and Native Digital. The deal showcases a three‑year‑old AI platform that blends algorithmic analysis with human advisors. Meanwhile, CEE...
How to Know if Your AI Partner Understands Your Business
Companies often hire AI partners without vetting their business acumen, leading to costly delays. Effective partners start by probing workflow pain points, not by pushing specific models, ensuring solutions address real needs. Experience at a similar company size and stage...
Czech Edmund Raised €2.5M to Fix Manufacturing Downtime with AI
Czech AI startup Edmund secured €2.5 million (about $2.7 million) to scale its industrial troubleshooting platform across Europe and the United States. The solution aggregates documentation, PLC projects and real‑time sensor data, enabling technicians to diagnose faults in minutes instead of hours...
Netflix Collaborates with INSAIT to Launch Breakthrough AI Video Editing Tool
Netflix Research and Bulgaria’s INSAIT have released VOID, an open‑source AI model that removes objects from video while reconstructing scenes with physics‑consistent motion. Launched on April 3 under an Apache 2.0 license, VOID leverages Meta’s SAM2, Google’s Gemini 3 Pro and Alibaba’s CogVideoX in...
“Build It and They Will Come”: The Myth That’s Keeping Regional Startups Small
Regional CEE startups are rethinking the old "build‑it‑and‑they‑will‑come" playbook as venture capital dries up and growth‑at‑all‑costs proves unsustainable. Experts from Estonia and Bulgaria highlighted that Estonian founders think globally from day one, while Bulgarian teams often stay in the local...
Bulgarian-Founded nFuse Raises €1.7M Round From Eleven Ventures and LAUNCHub Ventures
Bulgarian‑founded nFuse raised €1.7 million (≈$1.84 million) from Eleven Ventures and LAUNCHub Ventures to scale its AI‑powered B2B ordering platform that works through WhatsApp, Viber, SMS, voice and images. The solution compresses implementation cycles from up to 18 months to roughly eight weeks...
Sloppy Contracts Can Cost You, A Lot
Sloppy contract handling can expose companies to payment delays, disputes, and costly litigation. The article illustrates real‑world failures where finance, delivery, sales, or CEOs were excluded, leading to 60‑day invoice delays, unclear acceptance criteria, and unintended fixed‑price obligations. It then...
CEE Startup & Tech Weekly: BlackPeak Co-Leads Almost €30M Alcatraz Round
Bulgarian venture firm BlackPeak Capital co‑led a €29.77 million (approximately $32 million) Series B round for Alcatraz, a facial‑biometric authentication startup focused on physical access control. The round also featured Cogito Capital, Taiwania Capital, and existing backers such as Almaz Capital and the...
BrainDonors and HubSpot to Host B2B Growth Conference This May
BrainDonors and HubSpot are co‑hosting the B2B Growth Conf 2026 in Sofia on May 8, gathering over 500 B2B leaders to explore how to make revenue growth predictable. The single‑day agenda is split into four blocks—digital growth, revenue operations, AI‑driven outbound, and...
Vlad Gozman on Disrupting Mature Markets, 180° Pivoting, and Not Taking VC Money
Romanian entrepreneur Vlad Gozman built a career from EU consulting to founding multiple startups, ultimately creating involve.me, a no‑code platform serving over 4,500 customers with a 14‑person team. After a failed VR venture, he turned down VC money and pivoted...
Vantaa Is Giving Deep Tech Companies Direct Access to Industrial Systems
Vantaa, Finland, together with venture‑capital firm Innovestor, has launched the VivaTech Vantaa High‑Tech Cluster Startup Challenge, accepting applications until April 20 2026. The program targets deep‑tech firms in semiconductors, advanced manufacturing, energy and precision measurement, offering soft‑landing support and direct access to...
BlackPeak Capital Backs Biometric Security Firm Alcatraz in a Series B Funding Round
Bulgarian‑based BlackPeak Capital led a $35 million Series B round for Alcatraz, a facial‑biometric access control firm, with an additional $15 million in commitments, pushing total funding past $100 million. The capital, co‑led by Cogito and Taiwania Capital and backed by existing investors such...
Serbian Startup Funding 2025: Investors Are Selective, but They’re Finally Committing Big
Serbian venture capital rebounded in 2024, reaching €22.4 million (about $26 million) – an 89% year‑over‑year increase – and is projected to grow another 36% in 2025. Funding is becoming more concentrated, with larger rounds and a surge in pre‑seed activity where...
LeapXpert’s Sofia Event Explores the Future of the Engineering Role
By early 2026, roughly two‑thirds of companies generate most code with AI, with some aiming for 90% within the year. LeapXpert, a US‑based enterprise communication platform, is hosting its inaugural Sofia event, “Same Title, New Job,” to discuss how AI...
Inflammaging in Clinical Practice: GlycanAge’s New Data
GlycanAge is translating two decades of glycan research into clinical tools that measure inflammaging, the chronic low‑grade inflammation linked to age‑related disease. By profiling complex sugar structures on proteins, the company offers a long‑term biomarker that differs from short‑term markers...
SkyRefund: Building the Legal Infrastructure Behind Air Passenger Rights
SkyRefund, a legal‑tech startup founded in 2017, builds a data‑driven platform that automates air‑passenger compensation claims across the EU, UK, Canada, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Brazil. By aggregating airline, flight‑status, weather and news data, the company reconstructs the factual picture...
Bulgarian INVENIO Partners Unveils New €75M Fund to Support SME Growth in Southeast Europe
Bulgarian private‑equity firm INVENIO Partners announced the first closing of its third fund, targeting a total of €75 million (≈ $81.5 million) to back high‑growth SMEs in Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia. The fund will deploy equity and quasi‑equity investments of $3.3 million to $10.9 million...
How Machines Absorb Cultural Heritage (And What Gets Lost in Translation)
Large language models trained on English‑centric data can generate flawless grammar in Central and Eastern European languages, yet they miss the cultural nuance that defines those tongues. Benchmarks of Hungarian riddles and trilingual red‑team tests reveal only about 48 % factual...
“Ability to Articulate a Vision and Build a Brand Is Just as Critical as the Code Architecture”
Serbian studio Nordeus, founded by Branko Milutinović, grew its flagship football manager Top Eleven to over 300 million users and was acquired by Take‑Two Interactive in 2021. From day one the company pursued a global‑first mindset, stayed bootstrapped for a decade,...
Credo Ventures Launches Over €74M New Fund to Back CEE Startups at Pre-Seed
Credo Ventures has closed the first round of its fifth fund, Credo Stage 5, raising $88 million (approximately €75 million) to back pre‑seed startups across Central and Eastern Europe. The fund plans to invest $1‑5 million in about 30 companies, targeting seven to eight...
99% of People Communicate Wrong And Here Is Why
The Recursive Roundtable hosted a discussion on communication, featuring talent acquisition leader Boryana Borisova, Future Unicorns Accelerator CEO Konstantin Kunev, and video storyteller Andrey Andonov. The panel examined how communication fuels every human interaction and why vulnerability and storytelling create...
CEE Startup & Tech Weekly: First Ukrainian Defense Tech IPO
Swarmer Inc., a Ukrainian drone‑software firm, debuted on Nasdaq on March 17, becoming the first defense‑technology company from Ukraine to complete an IPO. The listing valued the company at roughly $500 million, signaling strong investor appetite for Eastern‑European defense innovators. The round‑up...
Polish Montis VC Raises €50M Fund to Back Europe’s Energy and Industrial Tech Startups
Polish Montis VC announced a €50 million first close for its inaugural venture fund, aimed at early‑stage European startups at the nexus of energy, industry and artificial intelligence. Backers include the European Investment Fund via REPowerEU, Poland’s development fund (PFR), and...
Ukrainian Defense Startup Buntar Aerospace Lands Almost €9M for AI-Powered Drone Intelligence
Ukrainian defense startup Buntar Aerospace secured $10.4 million (€8.85 million) to expand its AI‑driven UAV and Copilot intelligence platform. The funding, led by Axon Enterprise and Munkene AS, will accelerate development of the Buntar‑3 drone and its real‑time mission‑support software. Buntar’s solution...
Romania’s Fintech Sector Enters a New Phase of Growth and Integration
Romania’s fintech sector has entered a mature growth phase, bolstered by a 180,000‑strong IT workforce. A new fiscal rule effective Jan 1 2026 forces every business to hold a bank account and accept electronic payments, driving near‑saturation digital payment adoption. Turnover rose...
What Are the Gaps Between Fintech’s Digital Promises and Market Reality?
The Money Motion 2026 fintech conference in Zagreb highlighted that the technology to digitize finance is mature, yet adoption bottlenecks remain in institutions and legacy systems. In wealth management, 69% of institutional investors now favor firms with sophisticated digital platforms...
Dare2Scale 2026 Opens for Applications, Expanding Endeavor’s Network Across SEE
Endeavor Bulgaria has opened applications for the 2026 edition of its Dare2Scale growth program, now entering its eighth year. The four‑month cohort, running September‑December, will expand beyond Bulgaria and the Western Balkans to include the Adria region—Slovenia, Serbia and Croatia—while...
CEE Startup & Tech Weekly: Croatian Drone Tech Startup Orqa Raises €12.7M Series A
Croatian drone startup Orqa closed a €12.7 million Series A round, led by Expeditions with participation from AYMO Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Taiwania Capital, and Radius Capital. The funding will accelerate development of its first‑person view (FPV) unmanned aerial systems and support...
Croatian Orqa Lands €12.7M to Scale FPV Drone Tech
Croatian drone specialist Orqa secured a €12.7 million Series A round led by Expeditions, bringing its total funding to €20.41 million. The capital will fund global expansion, production scaling in Europe and the U.S., R&D acceleration, and potential strategic acquisitions. Orqa’s FPV drone...
“If Bulgarian Entrepreneurial Association Were a Startup, We’d Be in the Scaling Phase”
BESCO, Bulgaria’s leading entrepreneurial association, says it is entering a scaling phase similar to a fast‑growing startup. Over the past three years its membership surged from about 300 to nearly 1,000 companies and its staff tripled, bolstered by a growing...
Defense Giant Rheinmetall to Acquire Croatian DOK-ING in a Record M&A for Regional Defense
Rheinmetall AG has taken a 51% majority stake in Croatian uncrewed‑ground‑systems specialist DOK‑ING, while founder Vjekoslav Majetić keeps the remaining 49%. The deal, still pending regulatory approval, leaves DOK‑ING’s headquarters, management and workforce in Zagreb and adds a Rheinmetall competence...
Wealthyhood Secures €6M From Bank of Cyprus to Scale Across Europe
Greek fintech Wealthyhood has closed a €6 million Series A round led by Bank of Cyprus, with participation from Genesis Ventures. The startup, which already serves over 60,000 users in the UK and 10,000 in Greece, will use the capital to accelerate...
CEE Startup & Tech Weekly: Largest Pre-Seed Round in CEE
ValkaAI, a Czech AI startup, closed a €12 million pre‑seed round, ranking among the largest early‑stage investments in Central and Eastern Europe. The week also saw a $25 million Series B for Hungary’s Turbine, €4.5 million for Poland’s defence‑tech FlyFocus, and a $2 million seed...
From Gaming Analytics to Creative Intelligence: Aggero’s Pivot to AI-Powered Video Performance
Aggero, originally a gaming‑focused analytics firm, has shifted to a creative‑intelligence platform that predicts short‑form video performance across industries. Backed by a seed round and partnerships, it now leverages over seven million hours of content and 42 billion comments to deliver...
22+ Communities Powering the Baltic AI Ecosystem
Baltic AI startups secured €607 million in 2025, a 20 percent rise from 2024, underscoring growing investor confidence. The surge is supported by a dense network of associations, incubators, and industry hubs that translate funding into market‑ready pilots. However, OECD data highlights...
Kardi AI Is Scaling, MDR Class IIa Certified and Series A Ready
Kardi Ai, a Czech med‑tech firm, has secured EU MDR Class IIa certification and is expanding its long‑term ECG monitoring platform into the DACH region. The solution records heart rhythm for up to 12 months, uses AI to deliver physician‑ready reports within...
“Frankfurt Is Our Gateway to Growth”: Bulgarian Sirma Takes Its AI Ambitions Pan-European
Sirma Group Holding, a Bulgarian AI pioneer founded in 1992, has completed a dual listing on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, positioning the firm as a pan‑European technology provider. The move is expected to improve liquidity, broaden investor access, and raise...
Czech ValkaAI Raises One of the Biggest CEE Pre-Seed Rounds to Date
Czech AI startup ValkaAI closed a €12 million pre‑seed round, one of the largest in Central and Eastern Europe, led by Rockaway Ventures with participation from J&T Ventures, Tensor Ventures, BD Partners and Fond Naše Česko. The funding will fuel development of...
CEE Startup & Tech Weekly: CEE Tech Weekly: Databricks Completes $5B Funding Round
Databricks announced the close of a $5 billion equity round and an additional $2 billion of debt capacity, pushing its valuation to $134 billion and reporting $5.4 billion in annualised revenue, a 65 % YoY increase. The funding round underscores the influence of its Romanian...