The Warsaw-based biotech behind Miorelaxant Magic™ raised €1.6M, led by 4growth VC with Hard2beat, to scale its recombinant conotoxin platform, a clinically proven, needle-free alternative to botox, and expand internationally.
Piney, a Cyprus-founded cleaning and operations provider for short- and mid-term rental property managers, has raised €1.6 million.
How to Web’s Carmelina Lungu on what made the startups selected for the top 20 stand out in previous years
Circeus is betting that Europe’s established software companies can scale further with the right shared infrastructure.
More than a decade of building without outside funding has brought its share of lessons. The guest piece reflects on what worked, what didn’t, and what other founders might learn from the experience.
Unicorns, centaurs, camels, dragons — CEE has a real example of almost every animal in the startup investor's zoo.
After 20 years building Poland's startup ecosystem, AIP Seed CEO Dariusz Zuk says the missing piece is density at the top: founders who have scaled, private capital and big exits. He is building a VC platform rather than a bigger fund, with a planned Warsaw Stock Exchange listing.
Steven Bartlett, Trevor Noah, and Europe's top founders headline three days on AI, Deep Tech, and the human side of building startups.
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.
Ahead of Prague’s municipal elections, the Czech Startup Association brought together the city’s main political candidates to discuss its startup future, securing broad support for stronger innovation infrastructure, closer university ties, startup-friendly procurement, and a flagship tech event.
We look at how famous actors, athletes, and musicians are turning their reach, industry connections, and cultural influence into startup investments.
Based Collective co-founder Jonas Bartasius on why fundraising is over-glamorized, what Europe can learn from Silicon Valley without copying it, and why stronger founder networks could help the continent build bigger companies.
Croatian gaming-café franchise Friendly Fire raises €4M, led by AYMO Ventures, to fund international expansion across 11 countries.
Forget the decade-long SaaS slog: AI startups are hitting $100M ARR in under three years. An analysis of 17 industry darlings reveals a shared playbook rewriting B2B growth, and it’s not just tech hype.
A team of AI heavyweights, led by two Slovenians, left Nvidia to build a virtual sandbox for robots. With a $90M seed round, Veeda AI is betting that the safest way for machines to learn about our world is to never touch it.
Embedd, founded by three Ukrainian entrepreneurs whose previous hardware company was disrupted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, has secured pre-seed funding led by Seedcamp.
The Budapest-based platform, already used by more than 600,000 students in over 30 countries, plans to expand across Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas.
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 Everything Abu Dhabi is one of the year’s biggest applied AI showcases, bringing together AI enterprises, unicorns and startups building the infrastructure, frontier models, and full stack AI solutions across industries.
Vilnius-based Guideless has raised €1M in pre-seed funding led by Superhero Capital.
A landmark proposal to create a single European company form is caught between its promise of radical simplicity for startups and a parliamentary push for safeguards that critics fear could dilute its very purpose.
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.
