AI has drastically accelerated the speed of cybersecurity attacks, from rapid exploitation to highly personalized phishing. Luckily, security teams can leverage the same tools. How can companies prepare? We consulted three experts from the field.
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.
Marius Istrate, former UiPath Chief People Officer and angel investor, has joined Vienna-based VC firm 3VC as a Partner. The move deepens 3VC's focus on Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Managing €200M, the fund invests €2–10M at Series A, aiming to back ambitious founders building global companies.
We sat down with co-founders of the London VC Network (LVCN) to discuss the biggest shifts already happening across venture capital, startups, AI, and emerging ecosystems.
Hungarian-founded Kodesage has raised a €5.67M Seed round led by VentureFriends to help enterprises modernise legacy software with its on-premise AI platform.
On June 9, Digitalk, Capital's flagship technology conference, returns for its 15th edition at Sofia Event Center.
Paypercut has raised a €5M seed round to expand its payments platform across Central and Eastern Europe. The Sofia-based fintech, which now serves more than 200 merchants across eight markets, plans to accelerate product development, and launch new checkout solutions.
Fil Rouge Capital (FRC) marked one year since opening its Bucharest office, growing its Romanian portfolio to three startups, and evaluating over 100 local companies, according to Romania Partner Matei Dumitrescu.
For more than a decade, Swedish sleep-tech company Sleep Cycle has been exploring one question: is there an ideal moment to wake up? What began as a smart alarm clock has evolved into an AI-powered platform that analyzes sleep and breathing patterns using only a smartphone.
The third edition of the Google Cloud Day Bulgaria delivered its biggest headline yet — one of the European Union's first national "Cybershield" deployments. But the enterprise adoption numbers behind the big stories reveal a country still running at two very different speeds.
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...
With a fresh $110M in the bank and a key acquisition of PwC's tax platform, a trio of ex-Uber Croatians are tackling the one financial system technology forgot. Their goal: to make global tax compliance not just manageable, but autonomous.
From ‘predatory’ IP terms to a lack of smart capital, deep tech in CEE faces unique hurdles. Zagreb’s Liftoff conference wants to rewrite the rules of the game.
More than 120 investors managing over €10B in assets showed up in Maribor this May. Podim exposed a reality shaping Europe’s tech ecosystem: while founders from smaller markets are entering global competition earlier, the infrastructure needed to scale still feels fragmented and relationship-driven.
LAUNCHub Ventures has appointed Zagreb-based Vedran Blagus as its new associated partner, tasked with leading the firm’s expansion across Croatia, Slovenia, and the Western Balkans. "I want to be the first person in the region founders call," he says.
Sofia-based DSS powers the invisible tech behind banks, telecoms, and national schools. As ServiceNow experts, they prioritize strategic partnership over simple vending. From BP to their aIDentix platform, DSS proves that Eastern Europe’s technical hunger is a formidable global edge.
From AI to energy scaling, the event united CEE leaders with DACH to turn cross-border collaboration into a repeatable engine for growth.
Greek venture capital firm Big Pi Ventures led a US $30 million Series B round into Australian robotics company August Robotics, backing autonomous robot fleets that drill and mark floors across hyperscale construction sites worldwide.
With ICT exports hitting a record €4.5B, Serbia is a regional tech powerhouse. But as government ambition and Chinese investment surge, can it overcome the hurdles of being a non-EU nation and turn raw growth into sustainable leadership?
AI researcher Emily Kate Genatowski and her robot Tova are testing the limits of modern society. Through "tangible confrontations," she reveals that the biggest hurdles for humanoid robots are bureaucratic and legal, not technical. Is the world ready for the future?
Three guests, three very different jobs, one thing in common: they're all in their twenties and already taking on a level of responsibility that usually comes later in a career.
In this episode of The Recursive Roundtable, we talk with Viktoriya Markileva (Head of Space Services at EnduroSat), Georgi Nichev (Marketing Specialist at Helios Marine, Co-Founder of Scylla), and Maria Nikolova (Strategic Partnerships Development Manager at BESCO) about what it's actually like to be trusted with real responsibility this early — what makes someone trust you with it, how they handle it, and whether a career needs to follow a clear path at all.
In this episode, we explore:
🟣 How Gen Zs think about failure,
🟣 what hustle culture looks like from the inside,
🟣 what progress actually means to them,
🟣 and whether they'd be willing to wait years for the next step in their career.
💡 This conversation is essential for entrepreneurs looking to hire young talent, and for any Gen Z professionals wondering if they are ready to take the leap into a leadership role.
In this episode of The Recursive Podcast, we sit down with Rakuten Viber CEO Ofir Eyal to discuss how the company is evolving beyond messaging through its partnership with OpenAI, the rise of AI-powered communication, and the long-term vision behind building a "super app."
The conversation explores how the company approaches privacy and responsible AI adoption, and why Europe has yet to embrace the super app model seen across Asia.
Ofir also reflects on his own journey from product manager to CEO, the leadership lessons he learned while navigating one of Viber's most challenging periods after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.
In this episode:
☑️ Why Viber partnered with OpenAI
☑️ The future of AI inside messaging apps
☑️ Can Europe build a successful super app?
☑️ Privacy, security, and responsible AI adoption
☑️ How Viber makes money beyond messaging
☑️ Leadership lessons from scaling a global platform
☑️ Rebuilding after losing 40% of the business overnight
🎙️ Subscribe to The Recursive Podcast for conversations with the founders, investors, and technology leaders shaping the future of innovation across Central and Eastern Europe and beyond.
AI can generate logos, colors, taglines, and entire visual identities in seconds. But can it build a brand people actually remember?
In this episode of The Recursive Roundtable, we explore one of the biggest questions facing founders, marketers, and designers today: what does branding look like in the age of AI?
Joining us are three branding experts with decades of experience building companies across technology, consumer products, and global markets:
• Zlatina Petrova — Founder & Creative Director, Brandly
• Plamen Motev — Creative & Operational Director, Fontfabric
• Kiril Hadjidinev — Brand Strategist & Marketing Advisor
The episode is hosted by Etien Yovchev, Co-founder and CGO, The Recursive.
☑️ Why the strongest brands shape identity, not just recognition
☑️ How design, typography, and marketing create emotional connection
☑️ Why AI-generated brands often struggle to build authenticity
☑️ What happens to local brands in a world shaped by global AI models
☑️ How founders can preserve cultural identity while building for global markets
☑️ Whether AI can truly understand local language, heritage, and aesthetics
☑️ What remains of a brand when customers discover products through AI assistants
Whether you're building a startup, launching a product, working in marketing, or simply curious about how AI is changing creative work, this conversation offers practical insights into what still requires human judgment, and why great brands are built through relationships, not prompts.
