Techcelerator

19/06/2026

NATO ACT, working with JATEC, is running an Innovation Challenge for technologies that disable enemy airfields. Think runways, fuel, or infrastructure — in contested, GPS-denied environments.

Open to startups, industry, and academia with a €250,000 prize pool for the top three.

📅 Submission deadline: 20 July 2026

More info here: https://web.cvent.com/event/e0c0cbfd-4169-4fab-9161-530e3d2fb8c5/summary

18/06/2026

Researchers, industry experts, and technology leaders are coming together at ClujHub on June 22 at 18:00 for a conversation on how artificial intelligence is reshaping modern decision-making. Adrian Groza, Valentin Florian, and moderator Doru Rotovei, will lead the discussion.

Open to professionals and entrepreneurs eager to connect with the Cluj-Napoca tech community.

👉 Register here: https://oveit.com/hub/event/ai-and-the-future-of-decision-making-satellite-event-X7adpmnN

RO AI Alliance is back, and this time the discussion focuses on how AI influences the decision making process!

This event is open to AI professionals, entrepreneurs, researchers, and anyone interested in understanding how artificial intelligence is transforming decision-making across industries and society.

📅 22 June, 18:00
📍 ClujHub

Speakers:

Adrian Groza — Vice-Rector for IT & Digitalisation at UTCN, Professor in Artificial Intelligence

Valentin Florian — AI Consultant & Scientist

Moderator:

Doru Rotovei — Head of AI at NirvSystem Corp Open to AI professionals, entrepreneurs, and researchers looking to connect with the tech community gathering in Cluj-Napoca.

👉 Register here: https://oveit.com/hub/event/ai-and-the-future-of-decision-making-satellite-event-X7adpmnN

17/06/2026

We're gathering the ecosystem in Cluj-Napoca! 🙌

Together with GapMinder VC, we're hosting a curated evening for founders, operators and angel investors — designed for the conversations that move things forward.

Come join us for meaningful exchanges with people who are building and backing what's next!

If you're in Cluj on June 24th, we'd love to see you there!

📍 Visuin, Strada Universității, Cluj-Napoca
📅 June 24th, 6:00 – 10:00 PM
🥂 Drinks & nibbles on us

Reserve your spot 👉 https://oveit.com/hub/event/gapminder-techcelerator-builders-backers-satellite-event-X3ZjWj3x/registration

16/06/2026

CYNERGY 2026 ran today in Bucharest at Nord Events Center by Globalworth, as a side event of Bucharest Tech Week — researchers, policymakers, and industry people gathered to figure out how Europe gets serious about digital resilience. The event was organized by 28DIGITAL and the EU-funded COcyber project.

Ana Cristina Toncu, Programs Partner at Techcelerator, was on the panel "Converging on Innovation for a Safe European Digital Space."

A few things she said worth keeping:

🔒NIS2 created tens of thousands of entities in Romania with active compliance obligations overnight. CRA is reshaping who gets bought and who doesn't. A European startup that builds to these regulations from day one is easier to procure — especially by governments and large institutions — than a US or Israeli competitor retrofitting compliance later.

On the startup problem: large vendors move in 3–5 year cycles. Threats move in weeks. Startups close that gap. The hard part is the proof loop — institutions won't be your first customer, but you need a first customer to get proof. That loop is closed against you by default.

🇷🇴 On Romania: three things the country doesn't talk about enough — proximity to the Black Sea and the Ukraine conflict (solutions built here get tested against real threats), a technical talent pool that didn't come from nowhere (Bitdefender is not an accident), and Law 124/2025, which created sudden regulatory demand overnight.

Vanguard (https://techcelerator.co/techcelerator-vanguard/) — Techcelerator's new accelerator for deep tech, cybersecurity, and critical infrastructure — runs June through November 2026. SEE's first of its kind.

🚀 "Romania is not on the periphery of the European cybersecurity story — it's at the frontier. Literally."

15/06/2026

Tomorrow is the day! 📅 Ana Cristina Toncu will join the panel at ! 🚀

Among other topics, she will discuss why cyber resilience is a core startup challenge and how collaboration serves as a true competitive advantage.

Ana Cristina Toncu, Programs Partner at Techcelerator, will speak at

🗓️ 16 June 2026
📍Nord Events Center by Globalworth
🏷️ Free of charge

She will join the panel "Converging on Innovation for a Safe European Digital Space" to tackle topics like:

→ Why EU cyber resilience is a startup problem
→ The real challenges — what the ecosystem still gets wrong
→ Collaboration as the actual competitive advantage
→ What innovation in cybersec actually requires
→ What Techcelerator is actually doing — Vanguard

Co-organized by 28DIGITAL and the EU-funded COcyber project, CYNERGY 2026 runs as a side event of Bucharest Tech Week, bringing together researchers, policymakers, and industry actors to build regional digital resilience.

👉 Register here: https://f4os.share.hsforms.com/24ontEghYQpq69CAsfDTXCg

12/06/2026

Romania expands its footprint in the NATO DIANA network! 🪖

Five new Romanian testing centers have officially been approved for integration into the Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) network.

This expansion creates direct validation and testing infrastructure for deep tech startups and companies developing dual-use technologies. Alongside the new testing sites, a nationally affiliated DIANA accelerator is set to launch at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest, with ICI București - Institutul Național de Cercetare-Dezvoltare în Informatică coordinating the integration of local cybersecurity and research expertise.

For tech innovators in the region, this opens up practical verification pathways across critical sectors:

→ Artificial Intelligence
→ Cybersecurity
→ Autonomous Systems
→ Advanced Communications
→ Quantum Technology

The validation infrastructure will be formally included in next year's budget, solidifying Romania's role in the regional defense and innovation ecosystem.

👉 More here: https://startupcafe.ro/nato-deschide-usa-pentru-inca-5-centre-de-testare-in-romania-proiectele-diana-intra-in-bugetul-de-anul-viitor-100946

România face un nou pas în ecosistemul NATO dedicat tehnologiilor emergente și startup-urilor cu aplicații dual-use. Consiliul Director al programului NATO

11/06/2026

From 1 out of 130 applicants in 2024, to a €1M seed round in 2026. 🚀

Two years ago, Techcelerator and Google for Startups selected Naratix for the Advancing AI #4 cohort, anchoring them as a deep tech team to watch.

Today, Naratix just secured a €1 million seed round from Early Game Ventures (EGV).

The Romanian startup builds AI agent infrastructure and heuristic algorithms that automate product data standardisation for global eCommerce.

With clients across 30 countries on 4 continents and native integrations into VTEX, Mirakl, and Shopware, the team — Chris Orășanu, Marius Drenea, Vladin Grebenita, and Cristian Ionut Avram — has set a milestone to index 1 billion products. This €1M injection will back immediate engineering and sales hiring to scale operations across Europe, Southeast Asia, and pave the way for a US expansion.

Congratulations to the team! We have tracked your trajectory since the acceleration phase and look forward to the next milestones! 🤜🤛

10/06/2026

Ana Cristina Toncu, Programs Partner at Techcelerator, will speak at

🗓️ 16 June 2026
📍Nord Events Center by Globalworth
🏷️ Free of charge

She will join the panel "Converging on Innovation for a Safe European Digital Space" to tackle topics like:

→ Why EU cyber resilience is a startup problem
→ The real challenges — what the ecosystem still gets wrong
→ Collaboration as the actual competitive advantage
→ What innovation in cybersec actually requires
→ What Techcelerator is actually doing — Vanguard

Co-organized by 28DIGITAL and the EU-funded COcyber project, CYNERGY 2026 runs as a side event of Bucharest Tech Week, bringing together researchers, policymakers, and industry actors to build regional digital resilience.

👉 Register here: https://f4os.share.hsforms.com/24ontEghYQpq69CAsfDTXCg

09/06/2026

Cristian Dascalu is speaking today at Romanian Digital Day in Brussels. 🇷🇴🇪🇺

He will join the panel dedicated to Research & Innovation — Key Drivers for European Digital Technology Competitiveness.

Hosted by Victor Negrescu, Vice-President of the European Parliament, the event brings together European policymakers and tech executives to address AI adoption, cybersecurity, and infrastructure.

We are grateful for Vice-President Victor Negrescu’s invitation to join this dialogue and present regional technology insights within the European Parliament! 🚀

03/06/2026

Cristian Dascalu is at the in Brussels, where Europe's deep tech ecosystem meets to solve the scaling bottleneck.

For our regional market, that means aligning local VCs and angels directly with European funds so regional deep tech founders can secure the large, stacked financing rounds they need to scale.

As Cristian noted during his panel:

"We need to create more convergence within European capital and bring it into the innovation sector. The EIC is a great pillar for doing this... it is the light at the end of the tunnel that we should be looking toward."

Photo Credit: Ira Potcoava