Last month, 48% of visitors to documentation sites across Mintlify were AI agents—not humans.

Claude Code, Cursor, and other coding agents are becoming the actual customers reading your docs. And they read everything.

This changes what good documentation means. Humans skim and forgive gaps. Agents methodically check every endpoint, read every guide, and compare you against alternatives with zero fatigue.

Your docs aren't just helping users anymore—they're your product's first interview with the machines deciding whether to recommend you.

That means:
→ Clear schema markup so agents can parse your content
→ Real benchmarks, not marketing fluff
→ Open endpoints agents can actually test
→ Honest comparisons that emphasize strengths without hype

In the agentic world, documentation becomes 10x more important. Companies that make their products machine-understandable will win distribution through AI.

Make Your Docs Agent-Ready

Dear readers,

For a year and a half, Bulgarian EU Commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva has sat at the top table of EU innovation. However, the question remains: what does this mean for startups in Southeast Europe? Our latest brief explores what lies behind Zaharieva’s role, can her appointment open doors for the region, and what regional founders need to do to turn representation into real opportunities.

This week’s edition also highlights Alcatraz AI’s $50M Series B and the cross-border growth of startups Voxa and nFuse. At the same time, turbulence in regional IT continues, with layoffs and downsizing in Serbia and N. Macedonia reminding us that growth is rarely linear.

In our ecosystem take, startup advisor Snezana Zivcevska-Stalpers points out that in the Balkans, technical talent alone won’t pay the bills. For that, you need strategy, sales savvy, and market smarts. 

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

For a little over a year and a half, the EU has had a startup and innovation commissioner from Bulgaria: Ekaterina Zaharieva. On paper, it looks like a win for SEE - representation at the top table, a voice that understands what it means to build from smaller markets, ecosystems, and capital pools.

But representation, on its own, doesn’t rewire systems. During the last decade, the region learned how to celebrate milestones such as funding rounds and exits - but still struggles to convert them into real advantages.

For Momchil Vassilev, managing director at Endeavor Bulgaria and SEE, the question is not whether Zaharieva’s appointment matters, but rather whether the region knows what to do with it.

It’s a sober framing, since the assumption that proximity equals influence doesn’t hold in Brussels. Commissioners operate at scale, and their incentives are aligned with the bloc, not with individual ecosystems, no matter how underrepresented they might feel.

A region that still thinks in fragments

At events like TechChill in Riga, Latvia, SEE often feels present, but not unified. Founders from Skopje, Sofia, Belgrade, and Tirana share similar constraints as limited access to capital, smaller domestic markets, and regulatory friction. 

Still, they rarely operate as a coordinated bloc and that fragmentation is increasingly hard to justify. “We didn’t really try to exploit the fact that we (the region) have a commissioner. And I believe we should.” Vassilev tells IT Logs.

While ecosystems across SEE are still organized nationally, the challenges they face are regional. Talent flows across borders, but institutions rarely do, and while capital looks for scale, policy remains local.

Zaharieva, interestingly, reframes the disadvantage. “All countries in Europe are small compared to our main competitors. In that perspective, you are not that different from the others.” she said during a panel discussion at TechChill. 

Learning from the Baltics, without copying them

For the Balkans though, the Baltics remain the default comparison. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have built reputations that far exceed their size, often cited as proof that small markets can produce global outcomes.

Zaharieva leans into that example. “You have the Baltics as a prime example - digital governments, good legislation, stock options, easy company registration. I never met a founder from the Baltics who had problems registering a company. It’s always digital, not expensive.” she says.

Thus, the main lesson here is coordination. The Baltics didn’t scale because they were individually strong, but because they acted as a system. The Balkans, by contrast, still behaves like parallel ecosystems occasionally intersecting at conferences.

“Whatever instruments and policies are rolled out, they should allow for a regional element. This is how we can create critical mass. Especially in our region, where we’re all small countries that are hard to find on the map.” Vassilev argues, adding that the implication is clear: without regional aggregation, relevance remains limited.

Fixing the missing middle

If SEE has a structural weakness, it’s not at the edges. While early-stage experimentation exists and late-stage success stories are emerging, the real gap sits in between, and that’s the commercialization phase.

Vassilev is now directly involved in addressing it through his role at Bulgaria’s National Innovation Fund. The goal is not incremental improvement, but repositioning.

“Until recently, it was just a pointless addendum to one agency. Now we are working to position it in a specific part of the technology transfer process - to cover the TRLs (Technology Readiness Level) between three and seven,” he says. 

In practical terms, this is where most startups either evolve or stall. Products exist, but markets are uncertain. Teams are forming, capacity is limited and while the risk is too high for traditional investors, it is also advanced for early-stage grants.

He further notes that ecosystems built on non-dilutive funding alone rarely develop strong feedback mechanisms. Hybrid instruments introduce accountability, forcing startups to think beyond survival toward scalability, Vassilev adds.

Plugging into Europe’s core systems

The ambition doesn’t stop at national reform, and the longer-term play is integration with the EIC - arguably the most important funding and scaling mechanism for deep-tech startups in Europe.

One specific mechanism under discussion is the “plug-in scheme” - a model where national bodies pre-screen startups for EIC funding. “It exists in Europe, but it hasn’t been implemented in the eastern part of the Union. We really think this is something we should do.” he notes. 

If successful, it would fundamentally change how startups from SEE access European capital. Instead of asking it from Brussels directly, they would move through localized pipelines aligned with continental standards.

A hub-and-spoke model, he points out. “EIC deals with the larger accounts, and the local equivalents provide support and selection. That’s how you scale a system.” Vassilev explains.

A narrow window of opportunity

Back in SEE, the implications are clear, but the response is still forming. The region has assets: technical talent, cost efficiency, and an increasing founder ambition. It has access to European instruments, and through the likes of Zaharieva, now has representation at the highest policy level.

“This means a lot - not just for Bulgaria, but for the whole region. If we do a good job in building infrastructure - relevant organizations with relevant resources - it will benefit everyone, even countries outside the EU.” Vassilev says.

The opportunity, however, is time-bound, he notes. SEE has a small, but real window to position itself not as a peripheral participant, but as a testing ground for scalable innovation models within the EU. In the end, Zaharieva’s appointment doesn’t guarantee outcomes - it creates possibilities, and they only matter if you seize them.

“We should be piloting initiatives here that can then be replicated across Europe. We already have the ideas.” Vassilev concludes. 

Costs rise. Clients delay. Pressure builds.

The Survival Hub gives you practical ways to respond from cutting costs to tightening operations and staying on top of revenue.

Built to help you take control when things feel uncertain.

Visit BELAY’s Survival Hub

More tech rumors? Ping us at [email protected]

IT Logs: How sustainable is Balkan startup funding without EU grants and diaspora capital?

IT Logs: Are Balkan startups building scalable global products or relying on outsourcing? 

IT Logs:  What structural bottlenecks most limit the region’s tech ecosystem growth?

The Adria Future Hackathon 2026 brings together young innovators for a 24-hour challenge in the inspiring setting of Kotor and Tivat (April 23–24). Focused on AI and sustainability, the hackathon offers participants (up to 35 years old) the opportunity to develop solutions to real-world challenges, with support from mentors and industry experts. With a €5K prize pool and the chance to present at the Summit itself, the event serves as a unique platform for learning, networking, and driving tangible change.