Dear readers,

This week we look at one of the more unusual applications of AI emerging from Southeast Europe: giving every parcel of land its own intelligence layer. Croatian startup Earth Ledger is combining AI, geospatial data and satellite imagery to build continuously updated profiles for individual properties, with Croatia serving as its first major test market and more than 14 million parcels already analyzed.

Across the region, funding activity continues with Serbian AI video startup Preview raising $12 million, Serbian new media startup Astute securing $1.2 million in pre-seed funding, and Bulgarian AI infrastructure company DiscreteStack raising €800K. We also look at the changing reality for tech workers as IT companies scale back benefits and perks that were once considered standard.

Finally, in this week's Founder Take, we break down the differences between application-layer and deep tech startups, why deep tech needs more patient capital and how building in SEE forces founders to learn how to do more with less. 

Happy reading!
Bojan Stojkovski
Editor-in-Chief, IT Logs

AI has spent the last few years learning how to understand language, images and increasingly complex streams of data. Now, Croatia-founded startup Earth Ledger is betting that the next step is for AI to understand something much more physical: the land beneath our feet.

The company has launched what it describes as the world's first Parcel Intelligence platform, an intelligence layer designed to give individual parcels of land a continuously updated profile of their condition, potential and opportunities.

The idea is relatively simple: instead of treating property data as a static collection of ownership records, boundaries, planning information and transaction history, Earth Ledger wants every parcel to become a living data point that can continuously change as new information becomes available.

The platform combines AI, geospatial analysis, satellite imagery and proprietary models to assess areas including renewable energy potential, environmental performance, infrastructure suitability and possible future uses.

The company's first major test market is particularly relevant to Southeast Europe. Earth Ledger is launching with nationwide coverage in Croatia, where it has already analyzed more than 14 million parcels. Croatia is also home to co-founder and Chief Business Officer Luka Vulić, while much of the company's development team is based there.

From conservation to parcel intelligence

The idea behind Earth Ledger grew out of its founders' experiences with conservation, land management and environmental projects.

Founder and CEO Joshua Weil says he spent more than a decade working in global conservation, where one of the recurring problems was not necessarily a lack of data, land or capital, but the inability to connect them.

The opportunity became more obvious as investment began flowing into areas such as solar energy, distributed energy and virtual power plants. The founders saw a potential connection between that capital, landowners and the large amount of information already being generated about the physical world. “We don't have a land problem, we have an intelligence problem,” Weil tells IT Logs.

That distinction is central to the company's pitch, as there is already an enormous amount of information available through satellite imagery, geographic information systems and other sources. 

The problem is that much of that information remains disconnected from the individual landowner or decision-maker who actually has to decide what happens to a particular parcel. Earth Ledger's proposition is to create the missing layer between the data and the decision.

Why the parcel matters

The company could have built another large geospatial database, but its founders argue that the parcel is a much more useful unit for turning information into action.

Satellite imagery can show what is happening in an area, while GIS systems can provide increasingly detailed maps. But decisions are ultimately made by people who own or manage individual pieces of land.

That is why Earth Ledger wants to connect large-scale data to individual properties. The same approach can work in the other direction - once information is collected at the parcel level, it can be aggregated for utilities, governments, financial institutions and other organizations.

A government could, for example, use the platform to identify how many landowners are interested in a particular renewable energy program. A utility could potentially understand where there is demand for distributed energy infrastructure.

Luka Vulić, Earth Ledger's co-founder and Chief Business Officer, says the underlying principle is straightforward: better information should lead to better decisions.

Turning static data into a continuously updated profile

One of the bigger differences between Earth Ledger's approach and conventional property data is the emphasis on continuous updates. Vulić says existing information can quickly become outdated. A landowner might find information about their property today, but that information may no longer be relevant months later.

Earth Ledger wants the system to behave more like an always-on consultant. “It brings the opportunity where you have the agent working for your land 24/7 and bringing continuously fresh updates,” he says.

That could include changes in environmental conditions, fire risks or other events that affect a property. The long-term vision is therefore not simply to have an AI model answer questions about a parcel. The idea is for the system to monitor the parcel over time and surface new information and opportunities as they appear.

This also explains why the company describes its platform as a “living intelligence” rather than another property database. Weil says the technology infrastructure is being built around Google Cloud, including Vertex AI and Gemini products, while the company is also looking at APIs and relationships with other AI providers.

The founders are particularly interested in the role of AI agents, but there is an important limitation in their vision. Earth Ledger does not want an autonomous system making consequential decisions about somebody's property without permission.

That could become increasingly important if Earth Ledger eventually moves from identifying opportunities to helping execute them.

Croatia is the first proving ground

Croatia occupies an unusually important position in the company's strategy. The platform is being launched with nationwide coverage there, and Earth Ledger says it has already analyzed more than 14 million parcels. “Croatia is super interesting to prove the concept because it's very diverse,” Vulić says.

That diversity includes residential properties, tourism-related real estate, agricultural land and islands. For a company trying to prove that a parcel-level intelligence system can work across different types of property, that provides a useful test.

Weil adds that Croatia has another advantage: the amount of money entering renewable energy and distributed energy infrastructure through European programs. For Earth Ledger, the opportunity is to connect that money with the properties that can actually use it.

This is where the platform moves from being an interesting data product to something that could have a more direct commercial impact. It could eventually connect that eligibility information to installers, financing providers, utilities and other partners, turning a collection of fragmented programs into a more straightforward process.

Vulić points to the example of virtual power plants as an area where this could become particularly useful. He cites an EBRD pilot program involving virtual power plants in the Croatian city of Šibenik as an example of the type of initiative where Earth Ledger could potentially help identify landowners interested in participating.

That creates a two-sided marketplace: property owners get visibility into opportunities they may not otherwise find, while institutions deploying capital get a clearer picture of where that capital can be used.

The bigger ambition

Earth Ledger is still at an early stage. The company itself acknowledges that its public launch is only the beginning and its longer-term ambition is considerably larger than Croatia.

The founders want to create a platform where every parcel can have its own continuously evolving intelligence profile, and where that intelligence can eventually connect landowners with energy markets, conservation programs, infrastructure investment and financing.

Weil describes the vision as every parcel on the planet effectively having its own AI. That may sound ambitious, but the underlying proposition is less about replacing existing property systems than adding another layer on top of them.

The company is betting that property data is becoming more valuable as the number of decisions attached to land increases. Renewable energy, climate resilience, infrastructure, conservation and distributed energy all require a better understanding of individual properties.

For Earth Ledger, the missing piece is not another map, but the intelligence that connects the map to the person, the market and the decision.

Croatia is where the company intends to prove that idea can work. If it does, the next challenge will be taking a system built around more than 14 million Croatian parcels and making it work across the much larger and more fragmented European land market, before eventually taking the model to the US.

Your inbox is full. Slack is piling up. Client messages need a response yesterday. Typing thoughtful replies to all of it takes hours you don't have.

Wispr Flow turns your voice into clean, professional text you can send the moment you stop talking. Speak like you would to a colleague — tangents and all — and get polished output. Emails, Slack, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, whatever's open.

89% of messages sent with zero edits. Used by teams at OpenAI, Vercel, and Clay. Works on Mac, Windows, and iPhone.

Try Wispr Flow free

IT Logs:  What helps startups win faster: moving quickly or building something truly deep? 

IT Logs: Why is stable, long-term financing so important for deep tech startups?

IT Logs: What is slowing down founders the most: hiring, fundraising, or regulation?