This week, we’re looking at a shift happening across Southeast Europe’s tech scene. The region’s IT services sector, long fueled by outsourcing, is slowing down under global pressure and the rise of AI-native tools. That slowdown is exposing a bigger issue that we hear about almost on a weekly basis: there simply aren’t enough new product-driven startups to sustain growth.

In response, startup studios and venture builders are stepping in, helping founders build teams and products from scratch rather than waiting for ready-made ideas. In Serbia, AI Nation is experimenting with 12-week programs that compress feedback and focus on execution, while in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Ministry of Programming takes a more hands-on, investor-builder approach to sustain early-stage startups.

We also track the latest moves in funding and acquisitions, from Edra’s $30 million Series A to Apple’s purchase of MotionVFX, a new SEE-based IP startup, and hear from investors like Peter Bilzerian on where smart capital is going in 2026.

Additionally, the Macedonian rising $10M ARR startup is in trouble with LinkedIn - their official LI page and founder and co-founder profile’s got banned on the platform, but their service remains operational.

Enjoy the read!
Bojan Stojkovski
Editor-in-Chief, IT Logs

The signs are hard to ignore. Across parts of Southeast Europe, the once-booming IT services sector is slowing down, influenced by global contraction, reduced outsourcing budgets, and a shift toward automation and AI-native development. For years, the region’s tech economies were built on outsourcing excellence, which translated to lean teams, competitive pricing, and strong engineering talent. 

But as that model shows strain, a deeper structural issue is surfacing: there simply aren’t enough new, product-driven startups to sustain long-term growth. In that vacuum, a different model is beginning to take shape - startup studios, or venture builders, are quietly becoming one of the more pragmatic responses to a broken pipeline. 

Two stories, developing in parallel across the Balkans, capture this shift with unusual clarity. One begins in Serbia, with a program designed to manufacture early momentum. The other in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where a decade-long experiment in hands-on company building is now shaping how capital itself moves.

Building founders before companies

For Serbian entrepreneur Neda Trifunovic, the realization came from watching the same pattern repeat itself: strong ideas, weak beginnings. “The pipeline of startups is always bad and we always tend to resolve it in the middle, but not at the beginning, when the major issues are most obvious,” she tells IT Logs.

As COO of Reputeo, an AI intelligence platform focused on detecting digital threats and monitoring reputation, Trifunovic operates at the intersection of enterprise technology and real-world risk. But over time, her attention shifted toward something more foundational: why so few startups in the region were making it past their earliest stages.

The emphasis here is deliberate, as AI Nation does not position itself as an accelerator and it does not wait for polished teams with defined roadmaps. Instead, it assembles them, sometimes from scratch.

“We want to help them define their ideas, solve global problems and simply get them going,” Neda says.

That “getting them going” is where the model diverges most sharply from traditional startup support structures in the region. Instead of lectures, frameworks, and pitch decks, the focus is execution: hands-on, immediate, and often messy.

Underlying AI Nation’s structure is a more radical assumption: that traditional startup methodologies are too slow for the current moment, Neda points out. 

“In an era where things are moving so fast, we can’t really do the agile methodology. In just two days you see what is wrong, you change and move quickly.” she argues. 

This compression of feedback loops, days instead of weeks, isn’t just about efficiency. This is the new survival in a landscape which is increasingly dominated by AI-native products, where iteration cycles are accelerating and barriers to entry are simultaneously falling and rising.

The early results are modest but telling. Some teams from the first cohort are already shipping products within weeks. “One of the startups is already launching after a month and a half,” she notes.

The sectors themselves are less important than the underlying principle. “Vertical industry doesn’t matter, but what matters is that there is the AI-native moment in the products themselves,” Neda says.

A Balkan-shaped ecosystem

While many startup programs in the region look outward and toward Western Europe or the US, AI Nation is intentionally regional in its design.

This regional layering matters. Historically, Balkan tech ecosystems have developed in silos, with limited cross-border collaboration despite shared challenges. By contrast, startup studios like AI Nation are attempting to build a more interconnected fabric: one that treats the region as a single, if fragmented, innovation space.

The long-term ambition, however, extends beyond programs and cohorts.

It’s a logical progression: from builder to backer, from execution to capital. But that transition - especially in the Balkans - is where the second story begins.

Investing by building

In Sarajevo, angel investor Resad Zacina has been working on a version of this model for years, long before “startup studio” became a buzzword in the region. Through the Ministry of Programming, a Bosnia-based venture builder, Zacina and his team have taken a different route to the same conclusion: that passive capital is not enough.

That inside view is what Zacina believes traditional venture capital often lacks.

It’s a critique of scale-driven investing models that prioritize portfolio size over depth of involvement.

“When people say they are investing in 100 companies or more, that’s only a mathematics game. But you can’t really see how each company does in reality. We are not in that game.” Zacina says.

Instead, Ministry of Programming operates on a smaller, more intensive portfolio approach - accepting lower volume in exchange for higher engagement. “You get odds such as two, three out of ten and take it a bit slower,” he says.

If Trifunovic’s challenge is fixing the beginning of the pipeline, Zacina’s is sustaining it, particularly in a market where capital behaves conservatively.

This cultural preference has tangible consequences. Without early-stage capital, even the most promising startups struggle to maintain momentum after initial validation. “The thing is that in most programs they will go through an eight- or nine-week program, but what after that?” Zacina asks. “A lot of founders are also engaged in other work, and this is also a big problem.”

The solution, in his view, lies partly in education, and partly in structure.

“People need to see that there are exits and to see that people are making money from their investments. Good examples need to be showcased.”  Zacina adds.

Cannibalizing profits to build the future

Unlike many venture-backed studios in larger markets, Ministry of Programming has largely financed its venture activities internally, through reinvesting profits from consulting and development work into new startups.

“We cannibalized our profits, invested a lot of time into developing these ventures, and then went through a lot to basically see a light at the end of the tunnel,” Zacina says.

It’s a slower, riskier path - but it is also one that reflects the realities of the region. “All of our capital is in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We are the first generation of people who know how to invest bigger sums here, and this is an experience that we are looking to share with others.” he notes, adding that experience includes failure.

“We had about 14 or 15 investments… a lot of them fell through, but those that made it are bringing a lot of value,” Zacina says.

In a market still learning how to price risk, those lessons are as important as the successes.

Despite their different starting points, both Trifunovic and Zacina converge on a similar conclusion: startup studios are not just a trend, but they are a transitional mechanism.

For Trifunovic, the transition is about mindset as much as structure. “There’s a lot of hand-holding, but it is gradually needed to adopt that type of mindset which will help founders further on,” she concludes.

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