Deel makes first on-the-ground appearance in Bulgaria, spotlighting the region’s growing role in global AI hiring. As global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) talent continues to soar, Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is attracting renewed interest – not only from investors but also from infrastructure players enabling distributed work at scale. Among them is Deel, the global payroll and HR platform valued at over $12 billion. The company made its first regional appearance at the Digitalk + AI conference in Sofia, Bulgaria, signaling a more intentional entry into the CEE tech ecosystem. For Deel, which serves over 35,000 customers in 150+ countries and achieved a $1 billion run rate in just 5 years, CEE represents a rare opportunity in an increasingly saturated global landscape: significant untapped potential and an urgent need to build internationally distributed teams

Amsterdam-based Rembrandt (formerly Cocraft), an AI-powered revenue intelligence platform, has secured €330,000 in funding.The funding comes from three seasoned angel investors—two with deep expertise in machine learning and AI and one with a proven track record in SaaS sales.The investment announcement comes a week after rebranding its name from Cocraft to Rembrandt to reflect its mission of bringing clarity to the already complicated revenue intelligence. Fund utilisationThe company will use this investment to grow its core team across engineering, product, and customer success while also scaling its customer base and accelerating product development.On the product side, the company is planning to expand its data sources by incorporating tender platforms, GitHub repositories, and paywalled industry media.Additionally, the company plans to introduce new agent types, such as Market Intelligence Agents and Competitor Tracking Agents, to enhance strategic forecasting.The birth of Rembrandt: Solving sales inefficienciesRembrandt was founded by childhood friends Vincent Wijdeveld and Bob van Ratingen.“The idea came from frustration,” says Vincent to Silicon Canals. “We both experienced how much time gets wasted in sales chasing leads that aren’t ready to buy. We’d see talented reps burn through perfect-looking accounts based on outdated lists or gut feel, while real opportunities were missed because the signals were invisible.”At that point, the duo asked themselves: “What if we could detect real buying intent before it appears in a CRM?”“That was the seed. But Rembrandt quickly evolved beyond lead discovery. Today, we help revenue teams understand where each of their key accounts sits in the buying journey — based on live, verifiable, public data. Not “intent tags.” Not recycled cookie data

Leading payroll and HR company Deel today announced that new anchor investors, including General Catalyst and a sovereign investor, have purchased clo