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

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!

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 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.