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.
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.
Healthcare is emerging as one of Europe's most strategic industries. Elizabeth Jennings shares why trust, long-term investment, and Central and Eastern Europe's scientific strengths could redefine the region's role in the global biotech landscape.
"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.
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.
As investors become increasingly selective, the Czech Republic's next growth wave may come from deep tech. Jan Lukačevič argues that while the country has no shortage of scientific talent, turning research into globally competitive startups requires stronger commercial skills.
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.
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.
"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.
From e-voting to unicorns, Estonia has become a global innovation success story. But according to Startup Estonia's Vaido Mikheim, the next chapter will depend on turning research into companies, scaling deep tech, and thinking beyond national borders.
“When researchers come to us, it doesn’t start with a negotiation,” Viktor Olsson of KTH Innovation explains. Here’s how Sweden’s founder-friendly university model is creating a deep tech powerhouse and what CEE can learn from it.
