The Recursive

Astute, a B2B platform with a Serbian founder at the helm, has raised an oversubscribed pre-seed round, with launching its new platform. 👉 B2B companies struggle to identify, access, and manage partnerships with relevant newsletter, podcast, and social media creators. The process is fragmented, manual, and time-consuming. 👉 Astute uses two AI agents to automate creator partnerships for B2B companies. One manages partnership administration for creators, while the other monitors creator content, identifies relevant conversations, develops creator strategies, secures partnerships and tracks results. The round was backed by Flyer One Ventures, Silicon Gardens, Marathon Fund, Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator, and strategic angel investors. 🔎 Read more: https://lnkd.in/dC37t4Q5

In the spotlight: Pathway, Preview, Volteum, Builderly, Sudolabs, EnduroSat and more!

As financial institutions embed dynamic generative AI into core compliance and risk monitoring, supervisory authorities face a new challenge: assessing interacting regulations during a single review. Nemanja Lazendić, a banking expert and academic lecturer breaks down why the EU 🇪🇺 must move to a unified supervisory approach as soon as possible: 👉 Legal compliance ≠ Practical supervision: Compliance with the AI Act, DORA, and GDPR happens individually, but risk reviews must evaluate how these frameworks interact together. 👉 The foundation model challenge: Externally updated AI models require continuous oversight rather than static, one-time validations. 👉 Methodology over regulation: Success relies on harmonizing assessment criteria across supervisors, not writing additional laws. Check full details in his guest piece ➡️ https://lnkd.in/dMV6piUW

A. Burak Dağlıoğlu (President of the Investment and Finance Office of the Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye) in his exclusive piece for The Recursive examines the structural maturation of the Turkish startup ecosystem. He shares how the nation is expanding beyond its historic role as a physical logistics bridge. With tech exports surpassing $5.3 billion, strategic policies across 🇹🇷 aim to turn trade corridors into active networks for cross-border innovation. Also, beyond producing global scaleups like Getir and Trendyol, the local innovation scene in Türkiye is experiencing a long-term capital recycling effect, as experienced operators transition into angel investors and mentors for the next generation. Learn more about this transition in his guest piece ➡️ https://lnkd.in/dnVipZeQ

Every investor sees a different version of the same startup. Our latest analysis explores how founders can go beyond the basics when researching investors, and use that knowledge to build stronger, more meaningful conversations. Because the right investor is someone who sees the potential in what you're building. Check out the full analysis 💡 https://lnkd.in/dZAW6QpC

In Silicon Valley, entrepreneurial failure is often viewed as valuable insight, whereas in Europe it is frequently treated as a final verdict. ⚰️ We spoke with Nir Eyal, a behavioral design expert and bestselling author, ahead of his upcoming lecture in Prague 🇨🇿 at The Mindset Advantage by Impact Nights this Thursday. In our discussion, Eyal shares why persistence (not innate talent or sheer luck) is the most decisive factor in entrepreneurial success. In this deep-dive interview, Eyal shares practical psychological frameworks, including: 🟣 How to "provoke" luck by making active choices rather than just accepting beliefs as facts; 🟣 Keeping the 'reality log', a practical tool to document objective performance evidence and build confidence; 🟣 Reframing failure not to view it as a personal shortcoming but as a useful experiment; 🟣 Adjusting mindset and accepting entrepreneurship is a learnable skill rather than an innate trait. Read the full interview here ➡️ https://lnkd.in/dYwrnqTj

"If they trust you, they are ready to move very quickly." Recently, The Recursive co-founder Etien Yovchev sat down with Romanian entrepreneur Antonia Dumitriu, founder and CEO of AI fashion startup Irisphera, to discuss the company's entry into the GCC, how she adapted the product, and what the local market actually looks like. Irisphera launched in September 2025 and is now active in 12 markets. The platform has processed more than 100,000 fashion products, completed over 50,000 virtual try-on sessions and generated more than 45,000 styling recommendations. One partner brand reached a 28% conversion rate, against industry averages of 0.7 to 5%. Read Antonia's story and full interview on The Recursive website: https://lnkd.in/ggFCTPP8 #ai #fashion #retail #computervision #dubai #uae #saudiarabia #qatar

For financial entities and technology vendors across the EU, with the start of 2026, DORA has officially crossed from paper compliance into active enforcement. As regulatory authorities automatically cross-reference third-party ICT reliance, "work in progress" filings are no longer being tolerated. Regulatory expert Yiannis Tsoutsoukis outlines the most important updates to pay attention to: ⚡ Direct member-state fines vary from €2M up to €20M, while critical ICT third-party service providers face daily penalties of up to 1% of worldwide turnover. ⚡ Mapping complex multi-layered fintech tech stacks and stress-testing 4-hour, 72-hour, and 1-month incident notification procedures are now essential operational mandates. ⚡ Senior executives and board members face direct personal fines of up to €5M alongside potential temporary management bans for governance failures. ⚡ Automated supervisory tools are scrutinizing multi-layered technology stacks, payment processors, and cloud dependencies across every Register of Information submission. Find full details in the article 🧵 https://lnkd.in/dSs7SVGN

The Recursive is a media partner of all of Ai Everything Abu Dhabi (6-7 October, ADNEC), GITEX GLOBAL Largest Tech & Startup Show in the World (7-11 December, Dubai), and GITEX AI SERBIA (25-27 May 2027, Belgrade). I'll be at all three; message me if you’re attending. We've worked with GITEX and Dubai World Trade Centre for a few years. Expanding our partnership is a natural next step given our common goals.  GITEX started in the UAE and expanded into Europe. We started in Europe and are expanding into the UAE. Same conviction, opposite directions: that these two ecosystems have far more to offer each other than either currently realises, and that the gap is one of familiarity, not opportunity. Someone has to do the translation. That is what I'll be doing in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Belgrade. Meeting people, listening properly, and giving the world-class networks inside each of those halls visibility & connectivity in markets that haven't heard of them yet. We're building the relationship infrastructure to connect the Gulf and Europe, so this long-term partnership across the next 9+ months is a statement that we intend to be useful to the Emirati ecosystem long after the news cycle around any single conference has passed. See you soon in Abu Dhabi! Vlad Borovina Matthew Cunliffe

In the spotlight: ICEYE, Omilia, MammoCheck, ESTEL Platform, EnduroSat, and more!