Can an algorithm handle an unexpected midnight crisis? Treating HNWI's like a premium mass market is a costly mistake. While AI excels at logistics, wealth management relies on human trust and subtle context.
Lithuanian defense-tech startup PDKINEMATICS secured a €2 million seed round co-led by Coinvest Capital and Iron Wolf Capital to scale production and deployment of its battlefield-proven Gannet precision guidance system for UAVs across Europe, Ukraine, and NATO markets.
Greece's innovation ecosystem attracted more than €732 million across 95 funding rounds in 2025, marking another year of strong growth. In this interview, Found.ation's Filippos Zakopoulos explains why capital is no longer the biggest challenge.
Sloneek Intelligence connects corporate data across every HR application in use, and can be controlled entirely by voice or chat. The new round will fund the platform's AI development and expansion into the UK and Polish markets.
Founded by investors with backgrounds in Wall Street biotech research and healthcare finance, Kos aims to give European life sciences companies greater access to US industry expertise, capital, and networks.
Slovak startup Definic, previously known as Nordics, raised €2.5 million ($2.9 million) in seed funding to help enterprises pick the right IT vendors through AI-driven vendor intelligence and benchmarking.
Romania is buzzing over a promised $1B "Quantum AI" data center in Cluj, but tech experts smell a marketing stunt. Is it a sovereign tech hub or just a massive power drain wrapped in buzzwords? The details don't add up.
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.
Digital Serbia's new scaling program kicks off with three startups from Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia that have already raised millions and now want to win new markets.
The CEE-born company is becoming the definitive bridge between high-growth regional tech ecosystems. C-level of The Recursive will lay the groundwork in 2026 through onsite presence across Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Vienna, Munich, and Berlin.
Fintech startup Paymove, based in Poland, secured €2.12 million in seed funding to build next-generation payment systems tailored for Agentic AI and fuel its expansion across Western Europe.
👯 Founder(s):
* Piotr Mazur – Founder and CEO
* Kamil Kuper – Founder and COO
* Tomasz Gęsior – Founder and Product Lead
📅 Founding year:...
The newly launched CEE AI Index 2026 by AI Chamber, developed in partnership with The Recursive Media and supported by Europe Cloud — is the first exclusive, data-driven deep dive into the artificial intelligence readiness of 11 Central and Eastern European countries.
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.
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.
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.
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.
