Bulgarian startup Estel Technologies has raised €270K in pre-seed funding led by Vitosha Ventures to expand its AI-native platform for tech staffing sales. The company aims to help recruiters identify real hiring demand, automate lead qualification, and reduce time spent on outdated opportunities.
How does a pre-seed AI startup win enterprise clients without a recognizable brand? Drawing from real deployments with Ukraine's Ministry of Justice and major retailer Silpo, this article shares practical lessons on building trust, closing enterprise deals, and the signals investors should look for.
When a B2B site acts like retail, sales reps flee to spreadsheets and WhatsApp. True B2B requires mapping approval chains, gated specs, and legacy ERPs. Fixing the storefront won't work if your ERP logic stays broken.
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.
Europe’s AI Act was mocked for preferring rules over innovation. Now, as US political whims disrupt giants like Anthropic, legal stability looks like a superpower. Austria wants to lure top AI labs to the EU, but can regulation alone replace American compute?
Across Europe, business angel education is becoming an increasingly important part of building stronger innovation ecosystems, and the new ESIL Angel Academy is leading that effort.
With backing from Future Energy Ventures, Axpo, Montis, and existing investors, Pstryk is scaling its mobile-first platform that gives households greater control over electricity consumption through dynamic pricing.
Check the biggest H1 2026 funding rounds for Greece and key details about the startups.
Bootstrapped from day one, Kiss My Apps has grown into one of Ukraine's largest consumer app companies, reaching more than 160 million downloads.
Tripling output sounds great, until your audience walks away. A CEE marketing agency learned the hard way that generic AI assistants lack local nuance, tanking engagement. With the rise of AI search, culturally hollow text faces extinction. Are you automating your own downfall?
With its first US customers signed and fresh angel funding, Bulgaria’s AdScout's next ambition is building the infrastructure to orchestrate trust across buying journeys increasingly shaped by AI.
Check the biggest H1 2026 funding rounds for Slovakia and key details about the startups.
Bulgarian enterprise infrastructure startup Tiger Technology has raised a Series A round to accelerate its global expansion and advance its hybrid cloud data platform.
Check the biggest H1 2026 funding rounds for Slovenia and key details about the startups.
"Are there enough people willing to pay a meaningful amount of money to have a problem solved?" Pedro Santos Vieira, Partner at 500 Global, reflects on Doers Summit, VC, founder-market fit, and the structural factors that determine which startup ecosystems produce global companies.
Check the biggest H1 2026 funding rounds for Poland and key details about the startups.
Serbian Ominimo has officially reached a $1.6 billion valuation following its Series B investment round, which included participation from the investment arm of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
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.
Check the biggest H1 2026 funding rounds for Lithuania and key details about the startups.
Most startups collapse when crisis hits. Aspect Health founder Gleb Babiy built his in it. From zero-dollar recruiting to balancing clinical precision with founder speed, here is a story on how the raw grit wins.
Check the biggest H1 2026 funding rounds for Estonia and key details about the startups.
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.
