Michal Ciffra, Partner at DEPO Ventures and one of the key people behind The Fintechers initiative, discusses what makes fintech startups investable in 2026 and the next stage for investment landscape in Europe.
DEPO Ventures has been selected to manage a new fund backing startups from Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia. Managing Partner Petr Šíma explains why competition for Ukrainian technology is intensifying, and how Czech manufacturing could become part of the equation.
The Recursive co-founder Etien Yovchev talks to H.E. Wesam Lootah, Director General of GovDigital at DGE, on how the Abu Dhabi Government upskilled 95% of its workforce for AI, how it balances global tech partnerships with data sovereignty, and why governance guardrails matter most for public trust.
OfficeRnD founder Miroslav Miroslavov is building again. His new startup, 1club, has raised €2.2M from LAUNCHub Ventures and BrightCap Ventures to take its sports and fitness management platform global.
In less than three years, Bulgaria has gone from almost no battery storage to becoming one of Europe’s biggest battery markets relative to the size of its power system. What made this possible, and can the same formula work for wind and the grid?
Hadas Zucker explores why founders need human signals, emotional intelligence, friction, and intuition to build products that genuinely resonate.
After a decade of bootstrapping, Lithuanian web intelligence company Oxylabs took its first external investment at a €3.1B valuation. Its leadership explains why it chose a partner now and why it believes Europe can build global tech companies on its own terms.
Make's Martin Hýravý cuts through the hype ahead of the Startup Revolution AI Summit, revealing why founders must ditch flashy tech for dull, reliable automations that actually bring value and drive revenue.
“For global fintechs, our region is the rest of the world. Very little support, very little attention,” explains Paypercut’s Stoil Vasilev. He’s building a full-stack payment engine precisely where giants like Stripe refuse to get their hands dirty.
ElevenLabs’ Antoni Rytel discusses how CEE can turn its deep engineering talent into globally competitive AI companies and what the region needs to produce its next global success story.
What started as a San Francisco hacker house led Yasin Ehsan to scout for a16z Speedrun. Now, he is looking for ambitious founders in emerging markets.
Endeavor Catalyst is increasing its exposure to Europe, where its portfolio companies raised more than $8.3 billion across 2025 and H1 2026. Head of EMEA Pete Benedetto explains why the fund sees particular potential in CEE.
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.
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.
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.
Of the four drivers of AI capability that are coming, Europe can realistically play a role in agentic orchestration. Everything else depends on closing the adoption gap fast enough to matter.
New York Times bestselling author Nir Eyal explores how beliefs shape founders’ relationship with luck, failure, and persistence, and why Silicon Valley may see failure differently.
The Gulf adopts technology quickly, but the decision follows the relationship rather than the pitch. Romanian founder Antonia Dumitriu shares her journey of entering the GCC, adapting the product to local privacy norms, and learning why the meetings had to happen in person.
Insurance maybe isn’t sexy, but it’s a billion-dollar business. We sat down with Dusan Komar, the CEO of the first CEE insurance unicorn Ominimo, to exclusively discuss their exponential growth, market entry and expansion in Europe.
Employee ownership can already work with today's legal tools, says startup lawyer Stefan Surina. The real challenge is convincing founders and employees that equity is worth it.