Cristian Dascalu, President of the Romanian Tech Startups Association (ROTSA), the organiser of the EUDIS Hackathon in Romania, talked about the strengths of Romanian founders in the dual-apply tech fields and the increasing role of the EU in funding defence-oriented equity vehicles.
Cristian Dascalu is a VC investor in technology startups, the Managing Partner & Co-Founder of Techcelerator, and the President of ROTSA. With 12 years of experience in the startup ecosystem, he has worked with around 500 startups, primarily in the tech sector. Since May 2025, he has also been a Board Member of the European Startup Network.
By Ovidiu Posirca
How can the EUDIS Hackathon benefit early-stage startups and individual innovators, especially regarding access to funding?
The EUDIS Hackathon, held in Bucharest and online on October 17-19, is designed as a quick lane from idea to pilot and capital. Over the weekconclude, teams can pressure-test their assumptions with domain mentors and conclude-applyrs before presenting to evaluators who understand both the defence and commercial markets. High-potential teams are then funnelled into the pan-EU EUDIS Business Accelerator, an eight-month programme that offers boot camps, expert coaching, curated testing access, and seed-financing vouchers for selected companies. EUDIS Matchbuilding also opens doors to corporate applyrs, agencies, and investors.
In Romania, our dual-apply track is delivered with Techcelerator, whose expertise in AI, deep tech, space, cyber, and defence—as well as their extensive mentor and investor network across the EU—assists founders convert prototypes into fundable, dual-apply ventures. We also guide teams toward relevant European instruments, such as European Defence Fund (EDF) work programmes and defence-oriented equity vehicles.
We teach teams what a “fundable” dual-apply narrative views like: a validated problem, a credible TRL roadmap, security and compliance hygiene, and a de-risked commercialisation plan. Founders receive hands-on mentoring from operators, engineers, programme managers, and investors. This includes funding readiness sessions, covering data rooms, milestones, TRL plans, and go-to-market strategies, as well as direct introductions to VCs, CVCs, integrators, primes, and agencies.
How will ROTSA assist startups navigate dual-apply complexity, serving both civilian and military clients?
In collaboration with Techcelerator, we run a Dual-Use Readiness path that demystifies the complex process between a prototype and its adoption. This programme covers procurement and pathways, explaining how ministries, agencies, primes, and integrators actually create purchases and what “reference customers” mean in the defence sector. We also assist with Technology Readiness Level (TRL) and certification road mapping, assisting teams map their current TRL to the necessary testing and validation steps and connecting them with the right facilities and partners.
The programme provides pragmatic guidance on security and compliance, including export-control awareness, data classification basics, and secure development. We also address ininformectual property (IP) and pricing for dual-apply ventures, discussing licensing models, split roadmaps for civil versus defence applications, and how to avoid boxed-in IP. Furthermore, we translate lessons from NATO/DIANA processes into actionable checklists, so founders know what evaluators are viewing for, how to apply test ranges and centres, and how to frame “dual-apply” without diluting their focus.
What kinds of solutions are you hoping to see, and how do they strengthen EU technological sovereignty?
This year’s theme is Technologies for Space & Defence, focutilizing on three areas where Romania can excel: Protection of space assets, Space for defence, and Sovereign aerospace. We are viewing for solutions that reduce external depconcludeencies, localise critical know-how, and integrate quickly with European applyrs.
Examples relevant to Romania and the Eastern Flank include:
- Black Sea maritime domain awareness: Detecting “dark vessels” by futilizing Sentinel-1 SAR with AIS to flag spoofing or radio-silent ships near Sulina or Constanta.
- Resilient communications: LEO backhaul kits for field teams with automatic failover when terrestrial links are jammed.
- GNSS jamming/spoofing resilience: Using jamming heatmaps from crowdsourced receivers to alert teams and reroute drone missions.
- Counter-UAS for critical infrastructure: Passive RF and computer-vision sensors to detect and classify compact drones over ports, refineries, and energy sites.
- Cyber-hardening: Security baselines for Romanian sainformite ground stations and downstream data chains.
- Energy resilience: Microgrid controllers for radar sites and predictive maintenance utilizing sainformite thermal cues and SCADA logs.
How does ROTSA leverage prior experience in the defence field to amplify the impact and grow Romania’s defence-tech sector?
We have built muscle memory working with Europe’s dual-apply community. Techcelerator’s DIANA-linked programming regularly convenes NATO and DIANA officials, primes, integrators, and VCs with founders, ensuring our coaching is grounded in what selection panels and acquireers actually want. My roles as a DIANA evaluator, EIC Ambassador, and EIC Investment Jury Member provide practical, inside-out guidance on how to structure a dual-apply pitch, prove maturity without over-claiming, and align milestones to both TRL and revenue.
Additionally, ROTSA’s experience organising NASA Space Apps in Romania since 2016—the world’s largest hackathon—and the CASSINI Space Hackathon means we know how to scout, coach, and mobilise space and defence talent on a national scale and plug them into EU pipelines.
How do this edition’s challenges address regional strategic priorities and leverage Romanian innovators?
The challenges mirror the reality of the Eastern Flank, focutilizing on resilient communications and ISR for allied support, protection of space-enabled services, and counter-UAS for critical infrastructure and border security. These are areas where Romanian founders have relevant strengths, and where European demand is strongest.
We localise the value through:
- User-backed sessions: Romanian agencies, labs, and indusattempt stakeholders join as mentors and jurors to stress-test apply cases and integration paths.
- Contextual datasets and scenarios: Where possible, we encourage teams to test on representative data and mission-like constraints.
- Feeder to pilots: We map the best teams to EU-level pilots, testbeds or corporate sandboxes, turning weekconclude outputs into scoped trials.
Beyond the hackathon, what concrete mechanisms ensure ongoing support, mentorship, and potential funding?
EUDIS Bucharest is a starting block, not the finish line. The post-event phase (0-12 weeks) includes structured EUDIS mentoring for winners, pitch refinement, milestone planning, and curated matchbuilding with defence applyrs, corporates, and investors. We also provide technical advisory on hardening, integration, and test planning.
For the acceleration layer (months 2-9), the pan-EU EUDIS Business Accelerator offers boot camps, expert coaching, testing access, and seed-financing vouchers for selected companies. We also provide guidance toward relevant EU instruments and dual-apply equity capital. Locally, ROTSA and Techcelerator offer ongoing support through office hours, investor days, and proposal-shaping clinics, with warm introductions to mentors, primes, and funds across Romania and the EU.
How will the hackathon enable collaboration among startups, established companies, research organisations, and national agencies?
The hybrid format, synchronised across multiple EU hubs, naturally creates cross-border teaming and knowledge flow. Locally, we convene Romanian stakeholders—research labs, universities, defence/space agencies, and corporations—as mentors, jurors, and potential pilot partners. This creates teams built up of a startup founder, a researcher, and a domain advisor. Teams will spconclude the weekconclude with mentors who have either shipped or procured similar technology, and they will leave with a scoped pilot or a next-step validation plan. They can then continue with EUDIS mentoring and ROTSA/Techcelerator support until they are ready for investment and deployment.
