The February edition of the Catalyst Romania Newsletter

We are excited to share updates on our latest activities and insights from our team and from our portfolio companies. Stay tuned for more news on our investments!

🚀Hunch Unveils Its 2026 Product Roadmap: 
Building the Intelligence Layer for Cross Channel Advertising 🚀

For years, performance marketing has operated in a fragmented setup. Teams have moved between platforms like Meta, Snapchat, and TikTok to manage data, creative, and performance, often without a unified control center.

Hunch is setting out to change that.

The newly announced 2026 roadmap outlines Hunch’s evolution into a command center for cross channel advertising. The vision is a unified ecosystem where global marketing teams can manage, automate, and optimize campaigns across multiple platforms from a single environment.

At the core of this strategy is what Hunch calls the Intelligence Layer: infrastructure designed to shift the focus from reactive reporting toward actionable decision making. Instead of asking what happened, marketers can focus on what to do next.

As product capabilities roll out throughout the year, the roadmap signals a clear ambition: reducing operational complexity while increasing clarity, automation, and performance at scale.

The full roadmap is now available on Hunch’s website, with regular product updates to follow as new features go live

⚡ Adservio and the Romanian Police Launch National Partnership to Strengthen Student Safety ⚡

Adservio has signed a national collaboration protocol with the Inspectoratul General al Poliției Române to support the nationwide implementation of the digital reporting mechanism “Butonul Roșu” (apasabutonulrosu.ro), a tool designed to help signal incidents of violence in schools.

The agreement, concluded under Law no. 218/2002 regarding the organization and functioning of the Romanian Police, reinforces institutional cooperation between educational institutions and school safety authorities. Its objective is to improve the prevention and effective management of incidents within the pre-university education system.

Through this partnership, the Romanian Police will provide specialized support in resolving serious cases reported through the platform, participate in prevention and awareness activities in schools, and contribute to the dissemination of best practices related to safety in educational environments.

The “Butonul Roșu” mechanism is regulated under Order of the Minister of Education no. 4,200/2025 and functions as an anonymous digital reporting tool for acts of violence in pre-university schools.

The module is offered free of charge to schools and public authorities. Through this initiative, Adservio reaffirms its commitment to supporting education through technology and partnering with public institutions at critical moments. During the pandemic, the company made its entire platform available free of charge to all schools in Romania to ensure continuity in the educational process.

Strong public-private partnerships remain essential to accelerating the modernization of Romania’s education system and to creating a safer, more transparent, and more efficient school environment.

 

Advancing Education Digitalization in Romania

Digital transformation in education is built through dialogue, collaboration, and practical solutions. In this context, the CEO and founder of Adservio, Alexandru Holicov, recently met at the Government headquarters with Luciana Antoci, education advisor to the Prime Minister of Romania, to discuss concrete steps for accelerating the digitalization of the national education system.

The meeting focused on several essential priorities for schools across the country: reducing administrative burden, using real-time and relevant data to support decision-making, increasing student safety, and improving communication among principals, teachers, students, and parents.

The company has consistently advocated for an integrated ecosystem that supports student safety, enhances academic performance, and strengthens meaningful parental engagement in the educational journey. By connecting all key stakeholders within a unified digital infrastructure, schools can operate more efficiently while maintaining a strong focus on outcomes and accountability.

The discussion at Government level signals an important openness toward structured public-private dialogue in education. Romania’s education system requires coordinated partnerships and decisive action to move from fragmented initiatives to scalable, nationwide implementation.

📌 dotLumen: Patented Innovation 
Advancing Pedestrian Autonomy 📌

Strong, defensible IP around core technology is non negotiable in deep tech. It is what enables responsible scaling, attracts the right strategic partners, and supports entry into healthcare systems and global markets with confidence.

It is therefore encouraging to see dotLumen featured by the European IP Helpdesk in a case study highlighting how the company approaches intellectual property as a strategic pillar.

Founded in 2020, dotLumen develops smart glasses designed to replicate the capabilities of a guide dog, offering real time navigation for visually impaired individuals through AI driven interpretation of the environment and patented haptic feedback instead of sound. The technology has been validated with hundreds of users across nearly 30 countries and runs on a proprietary AI system that does not require an internet connection.

From the outset, intellectual property has been embedded into the company’s growth strategy. dotLumen has secured multiple U.S. patents and extended protection to more than 70 countries, building a strong foundation around its core innovation.

Recognition at European level reinforces an essential point for deep tech founders: breakthrough technology must be matched by equally strong protection and long term thinking. In dotLumen’s case, patented innovation is not just a legal asset, but a structural enabler of its mission to restore independence and mobility for millions of visually impaired individuals worldwide.

🏅 SeedBlink at 6: From Crowdfunding Platform to European Venture Infrastructure 🏅

 

This month, SeedBlink marked six years since launching with a simple idea: open access to startup investing across Europe.

Founded in 2020 as a crowdfunding platform, SeedBlink has evolved into a venture deal execution infrastructure for European private markets. What started with public fundraising now includes syndicates, shareholder management, and secondaries, all connected within a single lifecycle designed to support founders and investors from round to liquidity.

This evolution reflects broader shifts in the market. Capital structures have become more flexible, private rounds more common, and long term stakeholder management a core requirement rather than an afterthought. In response, SeedBlink focused on building systems that enable clean, repeatable, cross-border execution.

Six years in, the platform brings together a large pan-European community of founders, angel networks, and professional investors. The emphasis is not only on volume, but on infrastructure that users return to as companies grow and transactions become more complex.

Looking ahead to 2026, SeedBlink’s focus is on further integrating fundraising, syndicates, equity management, and liquidity tools into a unified experience, while expanding its support layer with legal and investment capabilities embedded directly into the platform.

In a fragmented European landscape, building connected rails for private markets is an ambitious path. Six years on, SeedBlink is doubling down on that choice, positioning itself as execution infrastructure for a market that increasingly demands coordination, speed, and structural depth.

Moreover, it is encouraging to see that four of the best funded Romanian startups of 2025 are companies from the portfolio of SeedBlink. Druid AI, dotLumen, Voxa, and Footprints AI operate in different industries, yet share a common denominator: global ambition backed by strong execution.

For us, these results are not just about capital raised. They reflect founders who have transformed technology built in Romania into internationally competitive products. Each of these companies demonstrates that local innovation, when paired with disciplined execution and access to the right investment infrastructure, can scale beyond borders.

Their performance also signals the continued maturation of the Romanian startup ecosystem. Funding rounds of this size are not isolated events, but part of a broader trend in which Romanian founders are building with international markets in mind from day one.

Congratulations to all the teams who continue to raise the bar for the ecosystem!

The full list of the best funded Romanian startups in 2025 is available in the analysis published by Economedia.

🎉 20 Years of evomag: Built with Discipline, Growing with Responsibility 🎉

 

Evomag affirms that 2025 was an intense year, shaped by real challenges and valuable lessons. It also reaffirmed that perseverance, when backed by sound decisions and rigorous execution, delivers results.

Looking toward 2026

For them, the objective for 2026 is steady, healthy growth built on solid foundations. No shortcuts. No artificial boosts. Just patience, discipline, and respect for a business constructed carefully over two decades.

The values guiding evomag remain unchanged:

  • Leading by example
  • Meritocracy
  • Teamwork
  • Common sense
  • Lifelong learning.

Congrats to the evomag team!

⚡ Career Opportunities within the portfolio ⚡

SeedBlink
Seedblink is hiring an Investor Operations Specialist in Bucharest for a hybrid, full-time role focused on managing investment rounds, supporting investors, and ensuring smooth execution of venture deals across Europe. This position is ideal for proactive professionals with strong analytical skills, knowledge of Romanian company law, fluency in English and Romanian, and a passion for shaping the European startup ecosystem.

📍 Location: Bucharest (Hybrid)
🔗 View full job description and apply here

Omniconvert
Omniconvert is hiring an Account Executive in Bucharest for a hybrid, full-time role focused on driving sales, managing client relationships, and shaping the future of eCommerce through Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) solutions. This position is ideal for motivated sales professionals with SaaS experience, strong English communication skills, and a passion for technology and digital marketing.

📍 Location: Bucharest (Hybrid)
🔗 View full job description and apply here

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