The future of innovation is largely in the hands of Gen Zs. Luckily, they have big plans for it. According to research data, Generation Z is both more pragmatic and entrepreneurial than their predecessors. They dream big about building a more resilient, empathic, and intelligent world, yet they are anchored in reality and highly analytical. A great combination for an entrepreneur, don’t you think?
In this article, The Recursive meets you with 10 promising Romanian Gen Z founders who are already bringing about change in areas such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, software development, and agriculture.
10 promising Romanian Gen Z founders
Name: Vlad Florea
Position: co-founder and CTO of Fastkets
Interest areas: Аrtificial Intelligence, deep learning, RPA
About: Vlad is currently pursuing a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from the Polytechnic University of Bucharest, after obtaining a Master’s degree in the same field. Not surprisingly, his company, Fastkets, is built on the premise that intelligent automation is the next step in the technological revolution. They offer services such as robotic process automation (RPA), AI analytics, and software development. In parallel, Vlad is a deep learning engineer at the AI-MAS Laboratory.
Name: George-Andrei Iosif
Position: founding member and core developer at MutableSecurity
Interest areas: security, cybersecurity
About: Before launching MutableSecurity together with co-founders Ionut Bajan and Alin Antoci, George worked for the Ministry of National Defense in Romania. MutableSecurity offers a solution for seamless deployment and management of cybersecurity solutions. George has a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering and Security Military Information Systems from the Military Technical Academy “Ferdinand I”, and is currently working towards a Master’s degree in Advanced Cybersecurity from the Polytechnic University of Bucharest.
Name: Eliza Pavel
Position: founder, R&D engineer and project manager at VIMfit
Interest areas: software development, fitness industry
About: Currently, Eliza is leading a team of five software developers at VIMfit. The startup is building a mobile platform to help fitness enthusiasts with daily interactive challenges. The platform works together with personal trainers to create and offer digital fitness content. Previously, Eliza worked in software engineering in London and Bucharest. She obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Automation and Computer Science from the Polytechnic University of Bucharest.
Name: Bibina Bogdan-Ionut
Position: founder of Sesam.ai
Interest areas: software development, AI
About: Bogdan is studying towards a Computer Science Bachelor’s degree at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest. After working as a back-end developer, he started his own company, Sesam.ai, together with Alexandru Bucurie and Maria-Ana Draghici. Sesam.ai is building an AI-based conversational assistant able to respond to questions from globally distributed corpora with individual jurisdiction.
Name: Gheorghe-Eduard Diaconu
Position: co-founder and head of sales at CityPack
Interest areas: economy, financial services, HoReCa sector
About: Eduard is one of the co-founders of CityPack, next to Raducu Gabriel Cruceru, Andrei Daniel Cruceru, and Pripas Catalin. They are building an app that aims to give you access to exclusive deals and discounts across various places where you can spend your free time, such as restaurants, pubs, cinemas, and gyms. Previously, Eduard worked as an insurance consultant, and had several internships in financial services and journalism. He has obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from UCL and is currently studying at the Academy for Economic Studies in Bucharest.
Name: Nicu Bogdan
Position: CTO and co-founder of SKULPTOR
Interest areas: constructions, structural engineering
About: Nicu has obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Civil, industrial, and agricultural constructions from the Bucharest Technical University of Construction, and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree at the same university. He has worked as a structural engineer for three years, before launching SKULPTOR, a construction company providing structural design and technical expertise services.
Name: Alexandru Dumitru
Position: co-founder of AdvertAI
Interest areas: digital marketing, content creation, AI, software engineering
About: Alexandru has co-founded AdvertAI, a solution that aims to revolutionize the digital marketing industry using AI to generate marketing content and automate posting. Alexandru is also working as a software developer at Endava. He has obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, and Master’s degree in Software Engineering from The University of Bucharest.
Name: Mihai Petre
Position: co-founder of Esenca App
Interest areas: e-commerce, machine learning, AI
About: Fresh out of university, with a Bachelor’s degree in Automation and Computers from the Polytechnic University of Bucharest, Mihai has joined a team of three in launching Esenca App, a solution aiming to solve return issues in the fashion e-commerce industry with AI. He previously co-founded Veritas Wineyards Solutions at Innovation Labs.
Name: Teodora Moraru
Position: co-founder and CTO of Tire2Tire
Interest areas: software development, blockchain, machine learning
About: In 2020, Teodora launched Tire2Tire, an automatic tire data collecting service for transport companies, placed at fuel stations. All the while, she was pursuing her Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the Polytechnic University of Bucharest. Teodora also serves as a board member of Autentica, a startup with a proprietary authentication technology solution for digital creators to transform their artworks into NFTs, and of Admin Tools, a monitoring tool.
Name: Dragos Manolea
Position: co-founder of Agro-Future
Interest areas: software engineering, digitalization, agritech
About: Together with his co-founder, Andrei Luca, Dragos is developing Agro-Future, a solution aiming to digitize the production planning of farmers in a cooperative. The solution uses data about existing demand to centralize orders and send notifications about future demands. In parallel, Dragos is a research development software engineer at Keysight Technologies, and an undergraduate teaching assistant at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest.
To get a more regional perspective, do not miss our list of 10 Bulgarian Gen Z startups and their founders.
