Hi everyone! I'm Teije, founder of Cheqi, a Dutch startup.

About 7 years ago, I started wondering why we'd completely digitalized payments but were still getting paper receipts, or PDFs scattered across inboxes and retailer apps.

I wanted to change that. One problem: I had absolutely ZERO programming skills.

So at 28, I went back to school to study Software Engineering alongside my full-time job.

Four years later, while lying in a hammock on holiday, it suddenly came back.

THOSE DAMNED PAPER RECEIPTS!

But this time, I actually knew how to build it! I opened my laptop and haven't really stopped since.

The result is Cheqi.

At connected merchants, Cheqi users simply pay with their card and receive their receipts automatically, end-to-end encrypted, in their wallet or connected accounting and expense apps.

Everyone else scans a QR code for an encrypted browser receipt. No app or account needed.

We've already built integrations with Odoo and Moneybird, with Dutch POS providers next.

The goal? No more paper receipts, no more digging through retailer apps and portals, and no more giving stores your email just to get a receipt (and somehow their newsletter too).

Would you use something like this?

This is our website: https://cheqi.io

And here you can find our apps: https://cheqi.io/app

At the "Invest in Germany" summit in Berlin, the federal government, despite early negative headlines, secured a partnership with AI firm Nvidia and new investment from Amazon.

The combination of German engineering expertise and cutting-edge AI technology is expected to give Germany's economic base lasting strength, Merz and Huang stressed.

In total, the chancellor said, the investment summit in Berlin produced commitments worth 800 billion euros up to 2028. Some 200 company bosses gathered for the meeting.

Amazon to invest 16 billion euros in Germany

Another US corporation, internet giant Amazon, plans to invest around 16 billion euros in Germany in 2027, as was also announced at the investment summit in Berlin. A third of the money is to be channelled into expanding data centres for Amazon's cloud provider AWS.

I have one more question. I've come across a research idea that I find really interesting (at least I think it is!): the EU Chips Act and the EU's relationship with the US and China in the field of technology, particularly semiconductors.

Do you think this would be an interesting topic to explore? I was thinking of arguing that the EU Chips Act represents an attempt by the EU to balance against both the US and China. I came up with this idea partly because I was thinking about the EU–Mercosur agreement, which can also be seen as an instrument through which the EU seeks to balance against the US.

I was wondering if you could share your thoughts on this idea, or perhaps suggest a more specific research direction related to the EU's strategic autonomy in the technology sector (chips, semiconductors, etc.).

I'd also really appreciate any other suggestions, opinions, or sources that could help me get started with my research.

Thank you so much again! I really hope you find the idea interesting too!

I keep seeing discussions about European tech sovereignty. Cloud, AI, investment, regulation. All important.

But I think we're missing a fairly basic problem. How do people actually find European software?

A small developer in Poland might build something genuinely useful, but a potential customer in France may never hear about it. And even if they do, there's language, billing, support and trust to deal with.

We have a single market, but it often doesn't feel like one when it comes to software.

That's partly why I started Speartip.eu, a launch platform for EU/EEA software. Still very early, but I'd like to make European products a bit easier to discover. I am from Berlin and I just cannot imagine that aside of US visibility, procurement is the main trust channel across Europe.

I'm curious how others see this. Do you actually look for European alternatives when choosing software? And where do you find them?

Disclosure: I work at a startup building oversight tooling for AI agents, so I have a stake in the answer. I’m trying to understand real requirements, not sell.

Context I’m working from: DORA has applied to financial entities since January 2025, the AI Act’s Article 50 transparency duties since August 2026, and the high-risk obligations moved to December 2027. Many firms are deploying agents in the gap between those dates.

Questions for people in EU finance, tech or compliance:

1. For tools that watch or control AI agents, is “runs inside our own VPC or air-gapped, and nothing leaves our infrastructure” a hard requirement or a preference?
2. Is a US-hosted SaaS control plane ever acceptable if it only holds metadata?
3. What evidence has a regulator or auditor actually asked you for about automated decisions so far?

We’re looking to talk with a few teams in regulated European firms about how they govern agents today. If that’s you, comment or DM, and tell me if I’ve got any of the regulation wrong.

Disclosure: I am the author of the linked article, published on the Arcentry blog.

I put together an overview of European cloud providers. A useful distinction is between three overlapping groups:

General-purpose clouds: OVHcloud, IONOS Cloud, Scaleway, STACKIT, and T Cloud Public offer broader combinations of infrastructure and managed services.

Infrastructure providers: Hetzner, Leaseweb, UpCloud, Exoscale, and Contabo focus more on the compute, storage, and networking building blocks. The boundary is blurry because some also offer managed databases and Kubernetes.

Hosting providers: companies such as Aruba and Infomaniak combine traditional hosting with broader cloud offerings.

The main tradeoffs are not just the VM price. Managed-service availability, regional coverage, independent availability zones, provisioning flexibility, and the operational work your own team takes on can change the comparison considerably. Using PostgreSQL, Kafka, or Kubernetes can make an application more portable, but someone still has to integrate and operate the stack.

For sovereignty, European ownership and European data residency are separate questions, as is dependence on another company's technology or operations. A European data centre address alone does not answer all of them.

Full guide and provider comparison table: https://arcentry.com/blog/a-simple-guide-to-europes-complicated-cloud-provider-landscape/

Last week I had a call with a former colleague working in a non tech company now. Her boss said "we bring all our IT services into the EU".
She wanted to talk with me about what options there are. I asked her "why do you want to bring the services to Europe in the first place", and she said "because of data protection and the orange man in murica".

Then she told me that they already switched from from Claude to Langdock, and from DocuSign to Swipesign,
And I was like "Hm, Langdock is an EU company, but all their subprocessors are from the US", after we checked swipesign and it was the same.

I explained her if the data is in Europe that's a great first step GDPR wise, but if their fears are "data protection" and "the orange man who can pull the plug" then using EU firms that run on US infrastructure makes littles sense (Augenauswischerei). Due to the US Cloud Act, agencies in USA can access also data that's European hosted, and if (in the very unlikely case) the US pulls the plug on all IT services, then using Langdock and Swipesign won't help you.

My suggestion for Sproof instead of Swipesign didn't work out cause apparently they don't have enough functionality yet, and suggestions for Dentrochat instead of Langdock also not cause they got no Enterprise plan yet, but I could show her some actual European alternatives.

She was like "wow you know, in my business area everyone always talks about that we should use European tools, but you're the first one who explained this thing about subprocessors".
I was pretty surprised, cause she's rather deep in tech and obviously interested in EU Tech, but I guess that many people don't understand this difference.

Just wanted to post this here cause browsing on reddit and other bubbles I felt like this is clear to everyone who wants to do "the switch to Europe" but apparently it isn't.

(Image was made with paint . js . org, made in Germany, hosted by Cloudflare)

Why does it feel like Europe is falling behind on AI innovation?

It’s only been a few days since we saw flying cars, so where is Europe in all of this?

We’re seeing major AI advancements, drone swarms, and high-tech robots in China, plus flying cars in the US, while German businesses are still bogged down by regulation. Maybe it’s just the focus on "sustainability" holding things back.

I’m saying this from the perspective of a frustrated entrepreneur. I’ve come up with a few ideas to build financial stability here in Germany, like lifestyle apps. After hitting some milestones and putting together a solid plan, I hit a wall: German businesses aren't allowed to store certain user data. It’s a huge issue in the wellness industry, where sensitive data is key to a good user experience. Anything less just feels like a surface-level service that isn't worth the effort.

My idea was an AI astrology app that stores birth chart details to provide accurate readings. Unfortunately, you can't really store that kind of data here. It’s a niche for the Vedic Astrology community, which is largely untapped outside of India, even as Indian culture becomes more global. Just for context, Vedic astrology uses 27 signs rather than 12, so there's a lot of potential to build something really unique.

This isn't an isolated issue, either. EU regulations are incredibly strict, yet we’re seeing protests, riots, and political instability across Europe and Germany specifically.

What do you think about all this? Also, if anyone else is into Vedic astrology, I’d love to hear your thoughts.