In 2021, we saw lots of successes for the maturing tech companies in the SEE region as well as a lot of promising Gen Z tech projects. That is why The Recursive wants to recognize the young regional innovators with the help of our audience.
We shortlisted the Gen Z-iers who we met throughout the year and leave it up to you to vote for the “Young Entrepreneur of the Year” as well as nominate someone who is not present on our list. The only requirement is that the young founder is no older than 24.
You can vote until December 22nd, 2021, and nominate young founders until December 12th. We have prepared some prizes for the winners:
- 1-year free access to all premium functionalities of The Recursive’s Growth Club (worth 220+ euro)
- 1 Architect of Change T-shirt
Pick one of the Gen Z startups in the survey below and check out what solution the young founders are developing. And take part in the rest of ongoing surveys for “Newcomer of the year” and “Fintech company of the year”
Who are the next tech stars in Southeast Europe?
AutoVortex
Founders: Cudrici Dimitrie Sebastian, Iacob Ana Maria, Cezar Andrei Dunuţă, Brînzan Victor
Based in: Romania
What they are building: Robots with which they participate in competitions all over the world. They aim to democratize robotics by inspiring a new generation of technology leaders. The team brings together some of the most creative and innovative young minds in Romania and the world, judging by their achievement.
A project in neural abstract reasoning
Founders: Victor Kolev
Based in: Bulgaria
What they are building: A project that explores the capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) to quickly understand logical rules and learn abstract concepts. Kolev recently became one of the winners at the 32nd EU Contest for Young Scientists and secured a €7000 grant to develop his scientific project in neural abstract reasoning.
Checkout X
Founders: Ruslan Leteyski
Based in: Bulgaria
What they are building: The world’s first plug-and-play WooCommerce checkout tool that helps online stores grow revenue by decreasing friction and optimizing the shopping experience to increase conversion rate and drive in more sales.
CreativX
Founders: Rosen Dinchev, Petar Petrov, and Snezhana Miteva
Based in: Bulgaria
What they are building: A video production, editing, and design outsourcing company that aims to connect content creators, such as vloggers, bloggers, and small and medium-sized businesses. CreativX eliminates the most time-consuming parts of the video production process to help content creators and businesses without a dedicated video department create engaging videos with the least amount of effort from their side.
Driving Force
Founders: Mina Popova, Hugo Saint-James, Pavlina Naydenova, Theodora Delcheva
Based in: Bulgaria
What they are building: Аn application for transport alternatives that provides information on the carbon footprint and green rating of consumers. The main goal of the project is fighting against the “culture of glorifying “the personal car” that is typical for Bulgaria.
EduBots
Founders: Rangel Plachkov, Russie Shishmanov, Petko Mikov, Dimitar Serafimov, and Kaloyan Blagoev
Based in: Bulgaria
What they are building: An educational kit for kids to learn robotics. The idea for the company arose in 2020 when the team of EduBots met and developed their project to become winners of Teenovator.
Human Collagen Project
Founders: Martina Lazarova and Milko Penev
Based in: Bulgaria
What they are building: Organic lab-grown human collagen knee implants that allow a full range of motion and joint functionalities, without pain. The medical experiment involves stem cells that are exposed to reactive substances, specially chosen by the young medical students and their mentors to influence the stem cells to turn into human collagen.
Howitzer
Founders: Nikola Velkovski and team
Based in: North Macedonia
What they are building: A marketing tool for the American social network Reddit, the biggest aggregator of online communities. The tool enables finding and targeting potential Reddit customers and their direct contact, resulting in 40-45% average response rate and excellent conversion rate.
SafePeak
Founders: Beloslava Malakova and team
Based in: Bulgaria
What they are building: An app for the quick localization of people lost in the mountains. The app is combined with an informational portal for weather conditions. The project was developed as part of the program for young entrepreneurs, Teenovator.
StudyHub Bulgaria and CareerHub
Founders: Tsvetomira Gyaurova
Based in: Bulgaria
What they are building: StudyHub is a 24-hour library and a co-studying space, located in Students’ town, a campus area for most universities in Sofia. CareerHub is a platform for job searching for people with no more than 3 years of experience. The platform connects companies from the Bulgarian tech space with young and prospective cadres who are motivated to start their career.
The Outfit
Founders: Ciprian Dudulea
Based in: Romania
What they are building: A fashion-tech platform for personalized shipping that combines algorithms and stylists to deliver the right products to customers. The Outfit uses the input of a personal stylist to understand what the customer wants, and tech to automate processes like choosing the right sizes or colors.
Third time’s the charm
Founders: Ivaylo Iliev, Stanislava Mincheva, Aleksandar Georgiev, Iren Dimitrova
Based in: Bulgaria
What they are building: A project that aims to give new life to retro cars by renovating them, electrifying them, and then releasing them to be used as a shared service. The team is also working on developing a prototype of its first retro electric car with the 10K funding that they received as the winner of Panda Labs.
UniFruit
Founders: Slavi Rezashki, Viktor Mitrev, Anna Dimova, and Konstantin Gospodinov
Based in: Bulgaria
What they are building: A technology for bringing back to the Earth satellites which have completed their space mission. The project aims to reduce plastic waste related to space exploration by taking care of the garbage that has been left behind from groundbreaking discoveries.
Wasteful
Founders: Marta Mihailova, Ivan Borov, Alexander Nikolov, and Alexander Parvanov
Based in: Bulgaria
What they are building: A science-based solution that transforms low-grade non-recyclable plastic waste into superior composite pavements. Having a goal to reduce pollution and create a product that outperforms its existing harmful alternatives on the market, the team of Wasteful won a €2.5K prize and was selected to participate in the European Competition Gen-E 2021.
