The Central and Eastern European region has recently seen an increase in the number of Web3 companies and startups using blockchain technology, decentralized finance (DeFi), and other Web3 technologies to create new and innovative solutions for a wide range of industries.
One of the most exciting areas of web3 in the Western Balkans is in the field of decentralized finance (DeFi). DeFi solutions use blockchain technology to create new financial instruments and platforms that are decentralized (meaning no one person or entity can remove or otherwise control access) and open to all, enabling greater financial inclusion and better access to financial services for those who have historically been excluded from the traditional financial system.
Digital identity is another area where regional Web3 companies are making a big impact. Solutions include implementing blockchain technology to create decentralized and secure digital identities that can be used for a wide range of applications, such as online banking or e-commerce.
In this article, we take a look at some of the Web3 startups and companies in the region that are making waves in the industry.
Central and Eastern European Web3 Companies
Name: Fragment Labs
Country: Croatia
Area: Blockchain
What theyre doing: Fragment Labs is an independent blockchain development company headquartered in Split, Croatia and operating worldwide. They specialize in blockchain use cases and web3 technology development, custom blockchain development services and token development.
The company aims to create digital products requiring blockchain implementation, focusing on decentralization, automation and continuous software delivery.
Their independent shard is SpaceShard – a blockchain R&D company that bridges Zero-Knowledge technology and brings it closer to mass adoption. One of SpaceShard’s main goals is to create an incubator and accelerator for creating new products within the StarkWare ecosystem.
Name: Mysten Laboratories
Country: Greece
Area: Web3 Infrastructure
What theyre doing: Mysten Labs is a Web3 infrastructure company founded in Greece that develops tools that make Web3 secure, reliable and ready for mass adoption. It is creating foundational infrastructure to accelerate web3 adoption, bringing together the brightest minds in the industry to create infrastructure and tools for a decentralized future for all.
The California-based company was launched in 2021 by five former Meta (Facebook) engineers and managers, with two Greek co-founders among its founding team. The company has big plans for Europe, starting with Greece as the main focal point.
“The reason we chose Greece is that two of the two founders are from this country, it is easier for us to find talent from here, we know the universities and where to find this talent and it made sense to start this process from here and extend it further throughout Europe,” Kostas Chalkiasone of the co-founders of Mysten Labs and its chief cryptographer, said The Recursive in an interview.
Last year, Mysten Labs raised $300 million in a Series B led by FTX Ventures and has reached a valuation of over $2 billion, with plans to use the latest funds for the aforementioned expansion and continue building the core infrastructure to power Web3’s next wave of applications.
Name: DeCenter
Country: Serbia
Area: Challenge
What theyre doing: Decenter is an R&D center and project incubator founded in Serbia and focused on creating products on the Ethereum platform. The company aims to build a more decentralized Internet using web3 and blockchain technologies.
Some of its early projects include NFT generative art projects and blockchain games. Today, the company is entirely focused on DeFi Saver, a web application for managing decentralized finance or DeFi.
As a core product, the DeFi Saaver is a bootstrapped product that enables management of various DeFi protocols from a single application with advanced and unique features in the DeFi ecosystem. It offers users a wide range of features, such as lending, borrowing, saving, asset mining and token swapping, as well as 1-click loan refinancing and transaction creation personalized by combining various actions.
As the company itself pointed out, “it envisions a world in which people can take full control of their digital identity and data, a world in which bots do not scan our emails in order to serve ads better targeted, and a world in which companies don’t. control every aspect of our online social lives.
Name: Quanteral
Country: Bulgaria
Area: Blockchain
What theyre doing: Quanterall, based in Varna, is a software and hardware R&D laboratory, specialized in developing end-to-end custom solutions in functional programming languages with high scalability, fault tolerance and high-performance capabilities such as Erlang, Elixir and Haskell.
The company’s core business is developing custom enterprise software, Blockchain solutions and IoT infrastructure. Quanterall’s technical team is made up of more than 90 engineers for blockchain, back-end, DevOps, web and mobile, embedded and hardware development.
The company has been active since 2016 with offices in Varna and Sofia and a global clientele ranging from startups to scaleups to industry leaders and sectors such as fintech, telecommunications, healthcare, insurance, logistics, retail, manufacturing and communication among others.
Name: Beyond businesses
Country: Romania
Area: Blockchain
What theyre doing: Beyond Enterprizes is a strategic blockchain consulting firm founded in Romania, currently present on four continents and partnering with more than 50 blockchain projects, including EOS, Bancor and HDAC, with a specific focus on insurance, fintech and DeFi.
Founded in 2012, the company has worked on projects that have reached a combined market capitalization of over $4 billion (as of August 2022), allowing it to expand its capabilities and go beyond strategic consulting and become a 360º full-service partner for strategy, software development and execution of products and services.
The company is also part of the global community of crypto funds and investors within the Blockchain Investors Consortium (BIC).
Name: ChangeX
Country: Bulgaria
Area: Challenge
What theyre doing: Last but not least on our list, Bulgaria-founded DeFi platform ChangeX combines the power of DeFI with CeFI compliance for an immersive experience that allows users to put crypto, DeFi, and banking under one roof. same roof.
The ChangeX platform focuses on DeFi composability, which allows economic systems to interact with each other and create synergies to improve the likelihood of outcomes.
ChangeX co-founders Nick Iliev and Gary Guerassimov have a rich history of developing successful fintech solutions, including xChange.bg, a Bulgarian crypto exchange, while HydraChain and LockTrip co-founders Nikola Alexandrov and Hristo Tenchev, are also part of the team. each of them brings seven years of blockchain experience.
Last year, ChangeX Initial Coin Offering (ICO) raised almost $2 million and provided the team with financial support for the next period of its development.