The Recursive

Austrian Post International Deutschland GmbH has signed a definitive agreement to acquire a 70% stake in Bulgarian-founded euShipments.com, an integrated cross-border delivery and fulfilment provider in Southeast and Eastern Europe. The acquisition supports Austrian Post’s LEAD 2030 strategy and aims to expand its international e-commerce logistics footprint across Austria, CEE/SEE, Turkey, and other growth markets. The deal marks a full exit for BlackPeak Capital, which invested in euShipments.com in 2022 to support its regional expansion. Read the news: https://hubs.la/Q03W72k80

🌍 Europe’s climate-tech boom is real — but many startups crash not because their tech fails, but because their financing does. We just published a new analysis on The Recursive, diving into why so many climate and industrial-tech ventures prove their solution in pilots, yet stall when they try to commercialize it. The article brings together insights from people working directly on the front lines of climate innovation, funding, and financial planning. Dr.-Ing. Mark Windeknecht (World Fund) Diana Aladzhova, CFA (CFO Insights) Thibaud Le Séguillon (Industrya) Wolfgang Lehmacher (Anchor Group SA) Michal Hendel-Sufa (theDOCK) Willem-Jeroen Stevens (@Clear Corporate Finance) Read the full article here: https://hubs.la/Q03W6GSr0

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Take a look at the latest news in funding, startup milestones, and emerging trends tied to the region’s innovation potential. 📰

🇦🇪 The first edition of Doers Summit Dubai brought together people who build ecosystems, and the sessions this week showed why cross-regional collaboration between Europe and MENA is becoming an increasingly used lever for founders scaling globally. 🌆 We were happy to facilitate three conversations that went straight to what matters for founders building across these two regions through our colleagues Livia Rusu and Kristiana Kuneva: 🚀 A panel moderated by Kristiana Kuneva with Stephane Gantchev (LAUNCHub Ventures), Florina Popîrțac (Spark Generation), and Elena Enache (Edge Craft) explored the advantage of CEE’s deep talent pools and hacking mentality, and the reality that Europe still scales country by country. For founders, CEE remains one of the few regions where you can access meaningful population, engineering depth, and early adopter energy at the same time. 🌍 Livia Rusu moderated a cross-border, cross-stakeholder look at sustainable growth and the enablers that actually move organisations forward - with Jan-Jaap Verhoeve, Dr. Jacinta Dsilva and Youssef Bouhaouala - from materials and policy to data, incentives, and industry collaboration, as sustainability sits at the intersection of business advantage and long-term resilience. 🤝 Another session moderated by Kristiana Kuneva: “From Lab to Market: Turning Research Innovation into Global Impact”, looked at how research turns into real products only when ecosystems reward practical problem-solving. Maria Markidou Georgiadou, Nikos Panagiotou, Milind Atrey, and Sami M.M. Abdallah aligned on the takeaway that we make the most of innovation when all stakeholders build around consumer benefits and not abstractions. 🙌 Looking forward to other events to help bridge the regions of CEE and MENA through meaningful conversations that advance cross collaboration!

Vit Horky is all about paying it forward! 🌱 After selling his startup, he felt a strong need to support the next generation of entrepreneurs back home. That desire sparked Czech Founders VC, a community-driven VC firm that's now a major force in the Czech ecosystem. It became the know-how hub of over 45 successful founders! With new United Founders fund his mission is to keep top European talent and IP right here on the continent. How he plans to do that? Check the full interview here ➡️ https://hubs.la/Q03W2qlK0 Engaged Investments Conference, United Founders #StartupEcosystem #FounderLife

Can founders really scale without letting go? 🤔 Have you watched the latest episode of The Recursive Podcast? We sat down with Boyan Stoyanov, an entrepreneur and operations strategist with a decade of experience building and running teams across Europe & Southeast Asia, to discuss how organizations can scale sustainably. ✨ Watch it here: https://lnkd.in/dkkU4bGB

Is it possible to have one standard for founders in Europe? We spoke to Damian Boeselager (MEP, Vice-Chair of ECON) and Iwona Anna Biernat (Co-lead, EU-INC), who laid it out clearly: 👉 Europe has an innovation problem. 👉 Fragmentation is slowing founders more than competitors ever will. 👉 And EU–INC, a voluntary, EU-wide corporate form, may be the fix. Read the article to dive deeper: https://lnkd.in/driVVFxj

Every year, we see people in our ecosystem whose work quietly sets higher standards — not through loud claims, but through what they actually do. Today, we want to highlight that kind of contribution: the people whose decisions, behaviour and commitment pushed their teams forward, strengthened the ecosystem around them, and created momentum others could build on. These symbolic recognitions span four areas — pioneering vision, strategic leadership, ecosystem-shaping impact, and the ability to turn connections into real opportunity. In other words: the people whose stories shape other stories. 🏆 Pioneer of the Year — Oana Andreea Jinga, Dexory Oana helped turn early robotics experiments in Romania into Dexory’s autonomous robots and digital-twin platform — technology built around real warehouse problems, not theory. In 2025, Dexory raised €143M to scale globally. She sits at the intersection of robotics, AI, product and commercial execution, and shares the lessons of scaling deep tech with Romania’s founder community so others can widen their ambition. 🌟 Leader of the Year — Slavena Tisheva, Wiser Technology Slavena stood out through clarity of thought, stability under pressure, strong strategic planning and long-range vision. In a post-merger environment of seven unified companies, she took responsibility for building a functioning marketing organisation almost from zero — setting structure, direction and execution rhythm. Building a global B2B tech brand for one of the fastest-growing IT services companies in the region, she leads with high standards, combining long-term thinking with day-to-day action. 🔍 Groundbreaker of the Year — Konstantin Bezuhanov, Evrotrust Evrotrust is an EU-notified high-assurance eID scheme supporting over 2M users from 61 nationalities and more than 200 enterprises across 11 countries. This year, Konstantin secured €6.6M from TCEE Fund IV, advised by 3TS Capital Partners, to accelerate expansion across DACH and CEE. His work combines regulatory depth, technological ambition and consistent ecosystem support for founders navigating trust-tech and identity. 🌍 Networker of the Year — Jaroslav Ton, Malcom Finance Jaroslav spent 2025 turning conferences across Europe into real access — new networks, partners and opportunities. This helped Malcom Finance finish 9th in Deloitte FAST50 with 1940% growth, analyse 88,000+ debtors, finance 265,000+ invoices and deliver more than €300M in liquidity to logistics SMEs. His presence and intent played a clear role in expanding the company’s reach across markets.

Some think the Central and Eastern European startup scene lacks VC, but Serhiy Tokarev, Co-founder and General Partner at Roosh Ventures, argues there's actually more capital than there are startups ready for scale. 📈 In his guest piece on The Recursive, he tackles major misconceptions about the region, as well it's 'superpowers' and what it would take for it to become global powerhouse. 🧐 Do you think CEE needs more of the "startup mafia effect"? Read the full piece! ↘️ https://lnkd.in/d6s94fyJ #CEEStartups #CEEcosystem #StartupMafia