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Hi there,
Over the past few years, we've witnessed that tech journalism has become faster, louder, and more crowded, yet often less useful. The race for speed and scale has reshaped not only how stories are published, but how they are understood.
At the same time, as editors and journalists, we often wonder whether they (and we) are trusted at all. Somewhere along that path, clarity and context became secondary to volume. We have been watching this shift closely, from the Balkans and far beyond Southeast Europe, while covering industries, conflicts, policies, and technologies that do not fit neatly into breaking news cycles.
And we came to an inevitable conclusion: the format had to change if the mission was to remain the same. So, IT Logs is becoming a newsletter.
We see this move as a return to journalism, through a format that values continuity over clicks, analysis over acceleration, and relationships over reach. This is also a format that allows us to craft each piece and publish it to carry weight, and send each message with intention. What follows will not be more stories - but fewer, deeper ones.
Technology seen through community, geopolitics, through policy, through power and consequence. A sharper focus on how these forces shape societies in SEE and beyond, and why they matter long after the headlines fade.
Best regards,
Bojan Stojkovski
Editor-in-Chief, IT Logs
A new wave of AI startups is trying to fix what tech broke
Besart Çopa, CEO of FirstVoyage
For more than a decade, the global tech industry chased a single metric with near-religious discipline: attention. The longer people stayed on their screens, the more valuable they became. Entire product ecosystems were engineered around this idea: infinite feeds, doom scrolling, behavioral nudges tuned to exploit the brain’s reward systems.
The consequences are now impossible to ignore. Rising anxiety, depression, burnout, loneliness, and attention disorders are now the defining features of it. Even as AI becomes deeply intertwined in everyday routines, many users are discovering that this technology itself can amplify the same psychological pressures - reinforcing isolation, dependency, and emotional fatigue.
As a result, mental health, focus, sleep, real-world relationships, even basic human presence have all become a collateral damage of the engagement economy. And now, something quietly unusual is happening: a new generation of startups is emerging not to capture more attention, but to give it back.
That shift is becoming visible in companies like 222 and First Voyage, two young ventures building AI systems designed not to keep people online, but to push them back into their own lives.
Last month, 222 raised a little more than $10 million to develop an AI-powered “social facilitator,” a system meant to reduce social isolation by removing friction from making plans and forming new real-world connections. Around the same time, First Voyage raised $2.5 million in seed funding, backed by a16z speedrun and SignalFire, to scale its AI companion app Momo Self Care, which targets another defining illness of the digital age: attention collapse.
I first met First Voyage’s CEO and co-founder Besart Çopa a few years ago in Budapest, when he was still a student. Even back then, you could tell that Besart was very much curious, restless, and already thinking like a founder.
Designing against distraction
Based in Washington, DC, and a Georgetown graduate, Besart left Albania at 15 and built and scaled consumer companies such as AnchorFree, Chestr, and Coachify.AI, which reached $1.5 million in annual recurring revenue. He also accumulated venture experience at Citi Ventures, a16z, and Antler, before launching his current company.
During the last few years, he has been building First Voyage, a consumer tech company focused on personal development through AI-powered experiences. That long arc now extends directly into his latest product called Momo Self Care.
“The vision of First Voyage, and our app Momo Self Care, is simple. Combine the best of AI personalization, gamification, and pixel-perfect animations to build a category-defining product.”
Momo functions as a digital companion that transforms daily habits into gentle, magical “quests”. Users track sleep, focus, meditation, productivity, screen time, and mindfulness, earning virtual rewards for consistency. The design is playful, but the behavioral effect is serious.
“We do this through creating mythological creatures that help users track habits, sleep, focus, screen time, and much more,” he tells IT Logs. So far, the response has been remarkable. Users have created over 2 million tasks, mostly tied to productivity, spirituality, and self-care. “Our D1, D15, and D30 retention are incredible. Another sign are the thousands of rave user reviews of how Momo has helped them in their day to day lives. We are incredibly lucky to be building something that tens of thousands of people use every day to track things that make their lives happier and healthier.”
Drawing a line in the age of AI attachment
As AI companionship explodes across consumer platforms, many products drift toward parasocial attachment and emotional dependency. First Voyage has chosen the opposite path.
“People should find emotional dependency in their community - with other humans - not with LLMs. We think apps that prey on parasocial relationships just for the sake of attachment are net negative in the world. In a world of AI waifus and AI slop, First Voyage and Momo are an antidote,” he adds. “We’re using AI’s personalization not to further distract people online, but to create delightful experiences that help users enrich their real lives and their real relationships with real people, one small magical quest at a time.”
That philosophy resonates deeply with Gen Z, a generation overserved with content and underserved with tools.
“Gen Z is one of the most depressed generations. Technology has unfortunately not helped with this problem because instead of encouraging people to act on things that disturb them, it offers cheap distractions. Momo is an antidote to that. We use the latest tech to encourage people to take the healthy actions they know they need to take - and feel proud of them,” he tells IT logs.
Why investors are betting on this shift
Investors see the same inflection point. “It’s clear that parasocial relationships with AI-enabled characters will become one of the major form factors for how billions of people interact with AI in the future. We are extremely proud that a16z, SignalFire, and True Global Ventures believed in the vision of Momo at such an early stage.” Besart says.
The new funding will fuel Momo’s Android launch, further refinement of its AI and animation systems, and the broader ambition to build a defining consumer brand at the intersection of AI, design, and self-improvement.
Thus, such investments also show that the industry is now deploying AI to restore focus, strengthen social bonds, and rebuild the habits modern technology helped erode. In a way, the same ecosystem that perfected distraction, is now selling the cure for it.
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Across the region…
After our beloved How to Web, the Romanian tech lobby now owns another big tech conference and media. Tekpon, the SaaS marketplace founded by Alexandru Stan, has snapped up 100% of The Next Web’s media and events brands from the FT. The financials weren’t disclosed, but it’s Tekpon’s biggest media play yet. Stan, who built 21 companies and exited five, reportedly signed the deal without even seeing the numbers.
The seventh edition of Endeavor Bulgaria’s Dare2Scale brought together 16 companies and two NGOs from Albania, Bulgaria, Kosovo, and North Macedonia. The program helps startups ready to scale, expand operations and strengthen their market presence. Ethermind took home the top Jury Award for turning organizational expertise into AI agents. Other winners included kidsday, BioStyle, and Simobotics, recognized for community impact, growth, and applying network feedback.
HeyReach’s team at the $10M ARR party in Skopje
Near the end of last year, HeyReach hit a $10M ARR and threw a milestone party, bringing together nearly every key player in North Macedonia’s startup scene. The SaaS platform helps businesses automate marketing and run smarter campaigns, and now it is gearing up to expand regionally and scale even further.
Skopje-based DevOps automation platform Microtica is heading to San Francisco, following in the footsteps of HeyReach’s founder Nick Velkovski, who regularly travels there to connect with investors and scale his startup. Microtica aims to replicate that success, expand its presence, and take its automation platform to new markets.
The second season of the startup-slash-reality show The Founder Games will be filmed entirely on a luxury mega yacht (yes, you read that right), traveling through iconic locations along the Adriatic coast. The first season attracted strong regional attention, reaching more than 2 million views and establishing the format as a unique blend of startup acceleration and reality-style storytelling.
Rumor has it…
Founders often pour not just time, but emotions into their startups. One Balkan startup almost collapsed after its co-founders went through a romantic breakup. Which makes you wonder, can founders date without risking everything?
The Bosnian startup ecosystem witnessed tensions as two major organizations clashed over organizing an event that included state funding. It raises the question of whether we’re truly maturing as an ecosystem or still acting out, struggling to coordinate and align priorities across founders, investors, and institutions.
For months, Skopje’s business scene has been buzzing with a single rumor: a crypto billionaire is hiding in plain sight. No names, no evidence, no confirmation - for now it’s just a story that keeps travelling from coffee shops and kafanas, to Telegram threads and long after-hours founder talks. We weren’t able to verify it, yet.
The Founder take…
Gorjan Jovanovski, founder of AirCare and CEO of Hylosense (former Earthcare.ai)
In 2026, what will help startups win faster: moving quickly or building something truly deep?
All startups will need to move quickly, this is now more important than ever before with the rise of AI. But if you just build without talking to your customers, understanding the problem, and adding quality to your build, you will ultimately fail. So going fast, but also smart is key.
Do you think AI-first startups will clearly beat those just adding AI on top in 2026?
AI is too much of a buzzword to define who is what and how that will help them. Are you building for AI? Are you building with AI? Are you adding AI to existing products? All can be valid use-cases IF you know what and why you are doing that. Slapping AI on something just for AI sake, is almost always doomed from the beginning.
What will slow founders down most next year: hiring, fundraising, or regulation?
A good founder will be able to work around all of these, so I expect nothing. AI tools help to deliver faster, depend less on funding (at least in the early stages), and regulation is very much tied to the industry that is being targeted.
Upcoming events in the region…
SaaStanak 2026 is taking shape for its second conference in May in Sibenik, Croatia, with its first keynote speakers announced. Kyle Poyar will share insights on scaling SaaS and AI monetization, Chris Cunningham will discuss B2B content and distribution, Jen Igartua will cover RevOps systems that really work, and Nick Velkovski will bring lessons from growing HeyReach to $10M ARR.
“SaaStanak 2026 is shifting its focus to hands-on learning. The program will combine morning keynotes with afternoon “schools”: Go-To-Market, Product & Engineering, and Founder Sessions. This setup covers the main topics of scaling a SaaS business, with the goal that every attendee leaves with an actionable plan for themselves and their team, as well as contacts from the conference that can help make it happen.”
Unlockit Conference 2026 - Feb 19-20, Belgrade
BWIGA 2026 -Mar 25, Belgrade
Adriatics Tech Summit 2026 - March 30 - Apr 1, Sarajevo
