SCION’s First Year in Perspective

This year felt like a stress test of a simple idea: can Central and Eastern Europe become a serious home for NatureTech, not just a footnote in someone else’s innovation story?

For SCION, 2025 was the year we stopped talking about that question in theory and started testing it in practice. The results were imperfect, encouraging, and very real.

From hypothesis to proof: the first SCION Accelerator cohort

When we launched the SCION Accelerator with the support of Rezolv Energy’s RezolvShift platform, we set out to test whether early-stage NatureTech teams in Bulgaria and Romania could move faster and further with the right structure around them.

Ten weeks later, Demo Day in Bucharest offered a clear answer. Ten teams took the stage with solutions spanning environmental monitoring, regenerative agriculture, circular energy systems and climate resilience. The jury recognised Nomadium Robotics, Proon-Tech, Solmag and Alt.Real, but the significance of the day went well beyond the awards.

The programme now moves into its next phase. The cohort enters pilots, partnerships and investor conversations, with SCION staying closely involved as those pathways take shape. Meanwhile, we are accepting applications for the second SCION Accelerator cohort, set to kick off in early 2026.

Apply via this link.

A wider frame: region, responsibility and long-term commitment

SCION Accelerator Demo Day went beyond pitches to place the work in a broader regional context. In a fireside chat, SCION co-founder Kamen Slavov and Rezolv Energy’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Jennifer Boca, reflected on why Central and South Eastern Europe matters in the global transition, highlighting the region’s digital talent, environmental richness and growing cross-border integration.

Their exchange reinforced the value of partnerships like SCION x Rezolv Energy, not as sponsorships, but as shared commitments to align capital, innovation and responsibility from the outset.

Our role in Europe’s DeepTech realm

Beyond the Accelerator, 2025 strengthened SCION’s engagement with the European and national ecosystems shaping NatureTech and Deep Tech. Joining Impact Europe connects us to a network of over 350 impact investors, foundations and public funders. At the same time, Impact Week in Malmö confirmed that Central and South Eastern Europe is increasingly part of Europe’s core impact conversation. Insights from these exchanges on capital flows and resilient markets will directly inform our approach to supporting founders going forward.

Closer to home, the bioeconomy roundtable, organised by the Regional Bioeconomy Hub — Plovdiv, brought ministries, academia, municipalities and businesses to the same table. SCION focused on a practical question: how to connect science, entrepreneurship and capital so ideas move into real application. The signal was clear with Bulgaria's readiness for coordinated steps that will lead to advancement in the bioeconomy realm nationally.

We see this work as complementary to our startup support. NatureTech and CleanTech do not scale in isolation. They depend on policy, funding frameworks and industrial partners recognising green innovation as a core development pathway, not a side initiative.

Mindset-shifting approach

Dialogue was another defining thread this year, not abstract awareness-raising, but conversations that help people understand the systems they operate from within. Through our SCION Talks: NatureTech in Action webinar series, we explored how sustainability intersects with business strategy, finance and policy, with contributions from voices such as Oliver Dauert, Becca Samson, Lubomila Jordanova and Angelina Boneva.

This approach also took shape offline. The Brain Circle: Mission Green Innovations, co-created with MOVE.BG, brought together experts from business, science and policy to work hands-on with real NatureTech challenges. Using Nasekomo as a live case, the session focused on how circular products and sustainable business models can rapidly shift from idea to adoption, illustrating the power of shared intelligence in driving practical change.

SCION co-founder Sasha Bezuhanova delivered a public lecture at the Agricultural University of Plovdiv, hosted by the Centre for CleanTech and Biomass Resource Efficiency (CCBRE). She spoke openly about living between two eras and the shift from dominance-driven models of success to ones rooted in connectedness and shared responsibility, highlighting the growing civic engagement of young people in Bulgaria.

These conversations do not deliver instant outcomes. They work more quietly, reshaping how founders, students, policymakers and partners see their role in the transition already underway.

Inside SCION’s vision

In a short span of time, SCION moved from concept to conviction. Working directly with founders and partners clarified where we create the most value. NatureTech, for us, is not a label. It is the hard intersection where biodiversity, climate resilience, circular systems, science and technology meet execution. This is where strong ideas are stress-tested, and where early teams learn what it takes to build ventures that can survive both market pressure and ecological reality.

The SCION Accelerator made something else clear. When structure, mentorship and peer exchange come together across borders, progress accelerates. Through the programme, SCION Talks and our growing community, we gained a sharper understanding of what founders in Bulgaria and Romania need at each stage and how quickly ambition turns into traction when the right conditions are in place.

The context we are building

This work unfolds against a backdrop of uncertainty. Political tension, fragmented governance and accelerating climate impacts shape the region, while trust in institutions remains fragile. At the same time, civic energy is rising, and the demand for credible solutions is becoming impossible to ignore.

For NatureTech, this moment is defining. Regulation can slow innovation, but urgency is pulling it forward. Central and Eastern Europe is not catching up. It is entering a different kind of transition, informed by scientific depth, compressed development cycles and a generation fluent in both ecology and technology.

Earlier this year, SCION joined Re:Think Green – Green Solutions from Bulgaria, organised by MOVE.BG, where new national data highlights both the growing potential and the structural gaps in Bulgaria’s green innovation landscape. The discussion underscored a clear need to better align innovation, finance and collaboration. It was a timely reminder that, even amid uncertainty, the region’s NatureTech momentum is becoming harder to ignore.

We will continue to adapt, learn and build. Our commitment is to expand regional scientific and entrepreneurial strength into ventures that matter, endure and scale with integrity. The momentum belongs to a growing community of founders, partners and backers who are quietly reshaping what is possible.

Stay close to what’s next

Follow how this momentum unfolds and subscribe to the SCION newsletter. We share programme updates, new opportunities and insights from across the SCION Community, including the upcoming call for applications for the next SCION Accelerator cohort.

SCION Accelerator Demo Day Aftermovie - Bucharest, Romania November 2025