With Chris Mantolas, Elena Papadonikolaki and Eilon Grouper

What happens when the next generation of European entrepreneurs steps up? And how do they turn personal obsession into scalable ventures?

In this special season finale, we sit down with three of Europe’s emerging founders — each building in wildly different arenas, but united by clarity of vision and ambition to reshape their industries.

🛥️ Christos Mantolas is the co-founder of Seago, a platform rethinking mobility across the Greek islands with private boat transfers and luxury yachting experiences.

🧿 Elena Papadonikolaki is the founder of Boutique Setters, a premier B2B hub for the boutique hospitality industry, connecting hotels, vendors, and service providers worldwide and promising to revolutionize the realm of boutique hospitality.

🧠 Eilon Grouper, a gamer-turned-AI-influencer, is building tools and content that demystify artificial intelligence — and turning his personal transformation into a platform for global reach.

Together, we discuss discovering their passion, finding their early users, and navigating the tension between bold ideas and local realities. Join us for a chat about the future of European entrepreneurship: scrappy, soulful, and surprisingly global.

With Renia Rigopoulou

How do you ‘Orphimize’ the music world? And why does a top product leader ban the phrase data-driven?

In this episode we sit down with Renia Rigopoulou, Group Product Manager at Orfium—the Greek-born scale-up that helps labels and publishers detect, claim, and monetize music across YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and other UGC platforms. Renia walks us through a decade of building products at eBay, Deliveroo, InstaShop, and Blueground, and discussed why she prefers data-informed to data-driven decision-making and how “be the user” became her golden rule (including engineers fixing bugs in greasy kitchens). We also discuss the benefits—and limits—of Greece as an R&D hub for a global business and why the the one skill she’d double-down on tomorrow is resilience

Whether you’re scaling a rights-management platform or just trying to ship features with impact, Renia’s playbook on revenue focus, cross-functional empathy and global product thinking is packed with field-tested takeaways.

With Alex Vamvakas

What makes a founder worth betting on? Why should deep tech be the next big focus for European VCs?

In this episode, we speak with Alex Vamvacas, founding partner of Evercurious VC—a new early-stage venture capital firm focused on commercializing deep scientific research across Europe. With a background that spans CERN, medical device startups, and asset management in Zurich, Alex shares what led him back to Greece to co-launch Evercurious. We talk about how to identify conviction-led founders, why real problems require real technology, and what makes an “investor-ready” startup. 

Plus, why sometimes the best move is to ignore the advice of those with “institutionalized thinking.”

What does it take to build a borderless company from the Balkans? And how do you design a startup culture that people actually want to stay in?

In this episode of Europe Builds, we talk to Jack Thorogood, founder and CEO of Native Teams, a fast-growing fintech platform simplifying payments, employment, and compliance for global professionals. With roots in North Macedonia and a footprint spanning 85+ countries, Native Teams is tackling remote work infrastructure with a bold cultural ethos and an employee-first mindset.

We explore how a personal problem became a scalable business idea, why building for the overlooked is a winning strategy, and what it means to create company culture with real intention. Jack also shares his playbook for hiring across borders, why remote culture needs more than Slack and Zoom, and how to build a business where no one wants to leave.

With Oleks Yaroshenko

How do you scale an edtech startup into a company with 150 million users worldwide, without taking outside funding? And what’s it like building it from wartime Ukraine? In this episode, we sit down with Oleks Yaroshenko, Chief of Staff at Headway Inc, the company behind one of the world’s most popular lifelong learning apps. Previously known as Headway, the company officially evolved into Headway Inc, marking its transformation into a full-scale consumer tech platform. Oleks shares how the team navigated competition, used A/B testing as a superpower, and built resilience through necessity. We also dive into Ukraine’s growing startup scene and debunk some myths about bootstrapped growth.

With George Georgiadis

How does an engineer turn into an investor? And what does it take to back world-changing technology before it’s cool — or proven?

In this episode, we talk to George Georgiadis, Founding Partner at Evercurious VC, a new deep-tech venture fund betting on scientist-founders building defensible technologies. George shares how his decade at Volkswagen’s HQ shaped his approach to investing, why Europe keeps inventing breakthrough tech but failing to commercialize it, and why Evercurious prefers conviction over hype when picking early-stage bets. We also explore how VCs can help technical founders become leaders — and what makes a startup worth waiting six years for.

How can you build something disruptive and transformative amidst one of the biggest economic downturns in recent memory? And how can fixing potholes be a brilliant move for an insurance company?

This week, Alexis Pantazis, co-founder and co-CEO of Hellas Direct, joins us on EUROPE BUILDS to share how he and his team built a next-generation insurance company in Greece—during the height of the Eurozone crisis. A former Goldman Sachs executive, Alexis explains why Greece was the perfect “blind spot market” for disruption, how Hellas Direct scaled to multiple countries, and why authenticity, vulnerability, and persistence are core to their leadership model. 

We also talk about the power of timing, the myth of the solo visionary, and how to build lasting trust in a notoriously unsexy industry.

What does it really take to back the right idea at the right time? And why might humility, not hype, be the most underrated trait in great investors?

In this episode of Europe Builds, we sit down with Nick Kalliagopoulos, Partner at Big Pi Ventures—one of Greece’s most prominent VC funds. With a decade of experience spanning Prime Ventures in Amsterdam and the Randstad Innovation Fund, Nick brings a rare blend of insight from both deep tech and the future-of-work sectors. We discuss how to evaluate truly transformational technology, what traits set apart the founders worth backing, and why ego can be a liability on both sides of the investment table. Nick also shares lessons in timing, discipline, and the quiet power of long-term conviction.

For anyone building or betting on the next frontier, this episode is full of insight.

How do you reinvent a dating app into a vibrant social network for the queer community—and grow it globally without a marketing budget? Why do even the most successful product teams still sometimes forget to listen to their users?

In this episode of EUROPE BUILDS, live from the Doers Summit in Athens, we sit down with Michelle Parsons, Chief Product Officer of Lex. A former product leader at Netflix, Spotify, Kayak, and Hinge, Michelle shares hard-earned lessons from scaling some of the world’s most beloved platforms. We discuss Lex’s pivot from dating to community, how to nurture word-of-mouth growth, how to adapt products to new cultures, and why customer obsession and fast experimentation are key to sustainable innovation. Michelle also opens up about designing with safety and privacy for marginalized users—and how a science teacher from Texas ended up shaping the future of consumer tech.

If you want to build better, listen deeper, and lead with impact—this one’s for you.

How do you build a global EV company from scratch—without outside funding—and use it as a vehicle for systemic change? And why might the most meaningful entrepreneurial journey be the one that ends in giving back?

On this episode of Europe Builds, live from the Doers Summit in Athens, we are joined by Adam Ridgway, founder and CEO of OneMoto Technologies, a pioneering electric vehicle scale-up transforming last-mile delivery across 13 countries and counting. Adam shares how he’s building a capital-efficient, impact-first company by rethinking scale, outsourcing smartly, and staying obsessively mission-driven. We dig into the three pillars of OneMoto’s impact model—environmental sustainability, operational profitability, and rider welfare—and explore how these shape their B2B-first strategy in emerging and underrepresented markets.

Adam also opens up about his ultimate ambition: a philanthropic “capstone” project to empower homeless individuals with EVs and dignity, and how a TV documentary he saw at age 16 became a lifelong source of purpose. We discuss why the delivery gig economy offers untapped potential for social reintegration, how to deal with betrayal in business, and what it really means to build a legacy with heart.

Check our Adam’s discussion on sustainable e-mobility in MENA: https://enterprise.news/climate/en/news/story/292baafb-cc03-4ea4-a7e1-1e0badb31708/one-moto%25e2%2580%2599s-ceo-adam-ridgway-talks-sustainable-e-mobility-in-mena