The Recursive’s weekly roundup aims to cover key tech developments across Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the growing impact of CEE-born founders on the global stage. Take a look at the latest news in funding, startup milestones, and emerging trends tied to the region’s innovation potential.
Ahead of Prague’s municipal elections, the Czech Startup Association brought together the city’s main political candidates to discuss its startup future, securing broad support for stronger innovation infrastructure, closer university ties, startup-friendly procurement, and a flagship tech event.
Based Collective co-founder Jonas Bartasius on why fundraising is over-glamorized, what Europe can learn from Silicon Valley without copying it, and why stronger founder networks could help the continent build bigger companies.
Can We Safely Live with Humanoid Robots? 🤖 In this fascinating episode of The Recursive Podcast, we sit down with Emily Kate Genatowski, an AI PhD candidate, historian and domestic robotics researcher who provides a unique, hands-on perspective on our future with machines. Unlike most researchers who work in controlled labs, Emily lives full-time with a humanoid robot named Tova (a Unitree G1) in her apartment in Vienna.
As the founder of PSL (Proportional Stake Liability), an insurtech startup bridging the liability gap in robotics, Emily’s career is dedicated to uncovering the practical, legal, and social friction points that arise when AI gains a physical body. She moves beyond the "AI hype" to explore how humanoid robotics will realistically intersect with our legal regulations, physical infrastructure, and the daily fabric of our communities.
🧠 Why Watch? Whether you’re a tech optimist, a skeptic, or someone worried about the future of work, this conversation offers a grounded, practical look at the challenges ahead. Emily moves the needle from philosophical fear to practical empowerment, showing us that we are still the architects of the future we want to see.
What does AI engineering actually look like inside modern enterprises — and how close are we to truly autonomous software development?
In this episode of The Recursive Podcast, we sit down with Karol Przystalski, Chief Data and AI Officer at Exadel, to explore how organizations are moving beyond AI experimentation and into AI-native operations.
We discuss the evolution from AI copilots and coding assistants to fully orchestrated engineering systems, why many companies are measuring AI success incorrectly, and how enterprise leaders should think about ROI, productivity, and organizational change in the age of autonomous engineering.
Karol also shares insights into Exadel Colleague — an AI-powered engineering teammate designed to support entire software teams—and explains why the future of AI isn't about replacing humans, but helping them focus on higher-value work.
In This Episode:
🔹 Why AI adoption is shifting from experimentation to real business value How enterprises have moved beyond AI proof-of-concepts and are now focused on productivity, efficiency, and measurable outcomes.
🔹 The difference between AI-enabled development and AI-native engineering Why coding assistants are only the first step—and how autonomous systems are transforming entire software development lifecycles.
🔹 How to measure AI ROI beyond token usage The metrics that actually matter, including productivity gains, human-equivalent hours saved, accuracy, and business impact.
🔹 The future of autonomous engineering and the role of humans Why AI won't replace software engineers, but will fundamentally change how teams work and what skills will matter most.
🧠 Whether you're an engineering leader, CTO, product executive, or simply curious about the future of software development, this conversation offers a practical look at where enterprise AI is headed next.
In this episode of The Recursive Podcast, we sit down with Kilian Kaminski, the co-founder of Refurbed, the Vienna-based marketplace that has become a powerhouse in the European circular economy. Kilian shares insights from his transition from Amazon to entrepreneurship and the ongoing battle to establish refurbishment as a standardized global consumption category.
A former head of Amazon’s Certified Refurbished program in Germany, Kilian left the corporate giant to revolutionize how we consume. Today, Refurbed has surpassed €2 billion in sales, proving that "rethinking new" is not just a sustainable choice, but a massive business opportunity that sits at the intersection of consumer trust and environmental impact.
What we discussed in this episode: ♻️ The limitations of corporate sustainability and the origins of Refurbed’s marketplace model. ♻️ Overcoming the "chicken and egg" problem of acquiring sellers and building consumer trust in non-new products. ♻️ The critical need for standardized European legal definitions and quality criteria for refurbishment. ♻️ Cultural differences in consumption habits and the untapped "gold mine" of 600 million unused devices in European households. ♻️ The impact of the "Right to Repair" directive and the role of the European Refurbishment Association (EUREFAS) in policy lobbying.
🧠 This episode is a must-watch for entrepreneurs interested in marketplace dynamics, sustainability advocates, and anyone curious about how the "Right to Repair" legislation will impact the gadgets we use every day.
Forget the decade-long SaaS slog: AI startups are hitting $100M ARR in under three years. An analysis of 17 industry darlings reveals a shared playbook rewriting B2B growth, and it’s not just tech hype.
A team of AI heavyweights, led by two Slovenians, left Nvidia to build a virtual sandbox for robots. With a $90M seed round, Veeda AI is betting that the safest way for machines to learn about our world is to never touch it.
Embedd, founded by three Ukrainian entrepreneurs whose previous hardware company was disrupted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, has secured pre-seed funding led by Seedcamp.
The Budapest-based platform, already used by more than 600,000 students in over 30 countries, plans to expand across Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas.
The Recursive’s weekly roundup aims to cover key tech developments across Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the growing impact of CEE-born founders on the global stage. Take a look at the latest news in funding, startup milestones, and emerging trends tied to the region’s innovation potential.
Ai Everything Abu Dhabi is one of the year’s biggest applied AI showcases, bringing together AI enterprises, unicorns and startups building the infrastructure, frontier models, and full stack AI solutions across industries.
A landmark proposal to create a single European company form is caught between its promise of radical simplicity for startups and a parliamentary push for safeguards that critics fear could dilute its very purpose.
Events, investors, free zones, councils, and trade agencies: in this listicle, we start mapping the initiatives and stakeholders building the bridges between Central and Eastern European communities.
Lithuanian deep-tech startup Litilit has secured an €8M loan from ILTE to advance R&D and make its femtosecond laser technology more scalable for industrial applications.
