Bulgarian-founded fintech Payhawk has surpassed $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR), becoming a Centaur company. The company attributes its latest growth to a two-year AI transformation across its products and operations.
Europe has the talent, research, and capital to lead in deep tech — but fragmented laws, tax systems, and investment rules keep startups from scaling. To compete globally, the continent must move beyond national borders and build a truly unified ecosystem for innovation and entrepreneurship.
Backed by BAE Systems, the European Investment Fund, and the NATO Innovation Fund, the new vehicle will invest in early-stage defence, AI, cybersecurity, quantum, and space startups across Europe.
At Croatia's Nuqleus Liftoff, EIB and EIC officials outlined a strategic push into deep tech. Backed by new capital to bridge early-stage funding gaps, the focus is on utilizing scientific excellence to drive industrial scale. Can the region help Europe build a deep tech moat?
Warsaw-based edge AI startup CTHINGS.CO secured over €1.8 million from Navivo Capital, the new fund's first investment, to accelerate its North American expansion, grow sales, and scale its Orchestra platform for managing IoT, edge, and AI infrastructure.
This is the story of how Facilization helped turn a vision into reality in record time for the banking sector.
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.
Ten startups from Poland to Greece are quietly rebuilding how Europe's €1.8 trillion travel industry works — from accessible booking and parametric insurance to hotel analytics and urban gaming. Here are the early-stage CEE companies worth watching.
In this interview, entrepreneur and CPA Australia Michal Wasserbauer draws on more than 15 years of experience building businesses across Southeast Asia to explain why the Czech Republic has the foundations for a thriving innovation ecosystem.
Orbit Capital has secured €107 million for the second closing of its Growth Debt Fund II, surpassing its initial target as institutional investors increase their exposure to venture debt.
A Prague-based AI lab founded by three former DeepMind researchers who built a poker-beating algorithm has raised the largest single investment Creandum has ever made, valuing the trading startup at over €438M($500M).
The Croatian startup plans to double its team, expand internationally, and further develop its AI platform after securing a €6.3 million Series A round led by AYMO Ventures.
The funding backs an AI platform that generates production-ready code from plain-language software specifications.
At Techsylvania in Cluj-Napoca, the CEO of SPARK, Sharjah's Research, Technology and Innovation park, made the case for partnership over competition, explained the role of government vision for attracting world-class talent, and was candid about what European founders get wrong about the Gulf.
Ivan Maltsev has spent a decade building and investing in crypto across three continents. His read on 2026: the UAE leads on regulation and ecosystem, the US still owns the venture capital, and Europe is maturing, just more slowly.
Organized in partnership with Plug and Play, the event created a platform for high-impact discussions, meaningful networking, and cross-border collaboration between Europe’s innovation ecosystem and the rapidly growing markets of Azerbaijan, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and beyond.
"I found someone who was a better entrepreneur than me, who was more visionary… I was like, man, I would love to work for you.” The story of how Gabriel Dymowski left his company to build AI hardware startup Pocket, which just raised €9.65M ($11M) led by Accel.
Czech startup Wultra has raised a new funding round to expand its post-quantum digital identity platform globally as demand for next-generation cybersecurity solutions continues to grow.
Asternova Vest, developed by a Romanian-French consortium of Aster Capital Partners, Iceberg+, and Venture Booster, targets €37M to back 18+ Seed and Series A startups from Western Romania, the region that produced Movidius, Tazz, and 123FormBuilder.
While messy code slows your product, "culture debt" quietly stalls execution as you scale. Here is how founders can build organizational clarity before implicit habits slow the team and company.
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 is transforming how companies operate, make decisions, and interact with customers. But as businesses rush to adopt new tools and increasingly autonomous AI agents, a critical question emerges: Are they moving faster than their security and governance can keep up?
In this episode of The Recursive's Roundtable, we explore the growing tension between innovation and control, and what it takes to adopt AI responsibly without slowing down progress.
The discussion brings together three experts from the AI, technology, and telecommunications sectors:
Plamen Nakov, Founder & CEO, DSS & alDentix
Tsvetina Lungarova, Data Protection Officer, Vivacom
Botty Dimanov, Co-founder & CEO, Tenyks
The conversation explores the risks of shadow AI, the differences in risk appetite between startups and large enterprises, and the challenges of protecting sensitive corporate and personal information. The speakers also discuss the role of trust, employee education, and human oversight, as well as AI's potential to strengthen cybersecurity by identifying vulnerabilities before attackers exploit them.
Key topics discussed:
☑️ Innovation vs. regulation: Is Europe's approach to AI governance slowing down innovation and putting European companies at a competitive disadvantage?
☑️ Data privacy and shadow AI: What happens to sensitive corporate and personal data shared with AI tools, and how can companies manage the risks?
☑️ AI agents and human oversight: How much autonomy should businesses give AI systems, and when should humans remain in control?
☑️ Trust, risk, and cybersecurity: How can companies balance AI adoption with security, and can AI itself become a tool for identifying and preventing cyber threats?
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.
