Péter Magyar, Hungary’s new Prime Minister
With Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán defeated in last Sunday’s election, Hungary appears poised to burst back onto the European economy after 16 years of languishing under increasing strained relations with other European states.
Any causal observer would be forgiven if they concluded that Orbán had presided over an increasingly authoritarian and inward-looking society, not to mention the development of a kleptocratic culture of corrption amongst his inner circle.
To the relief of many in the country - indeed, the majority it seems - Péter Magyar, a former Orbán ally in the Fidesz party who became his fiercest critic, has now swept to victory.
Tisza won 138 of 199 parliamentary seats on 53.6% of the vote, on a record 79–80% voter turnout, giving it a a supermajority which will enable it to unwind the constitutional changes which favoured Orbán previous electoral success.
With Magyar and Tisza’s victory comes the promise of closer ties to the EU and, it is to be hoped, re-awakening of Hungary’s languishing tech ecosystem.
This is, broadly-speaking, part of the conclusion of my podcast conversation with two keen observers and players in the Hungarian tech startup scene:
Ferenc Huszár, Founder, Reasonable and Professor of Machine Learning, University of Cambridge, who also happened to be a former data scientist at Balderton Capital.
Joining him was Csongor Biás, Managing Director, Startup Hungary an independent, entrepreneur-led organization launched to aid the startup community.
During our conversation one thing became clear: on the one hand, many young people had been conditioned to think the only way to get ahead was to express loyalty to the Orban circle, resulting in many leaving the country and seeking their fortunes elsewhere.
“I think 16 years ago, Hungary was quite the poster child of Europe,” says Biash. “We had breakout companies like Prezi, LogMeIn, Ustream. They opened up headquarters in San Francisco and raised money from top tier international VCs. But soon things started to go pretty badly. Largely because of the level of corruption.”
In 2025, Transparency International gave Hungary a public corruption score of 40/100, the worst ever recorded for the country and even below the global average of 43.
Some €1.04 billion in EU cohesion funds were permanently lost in 2024, the first time the EU had ever enforced this sanction against a member state. And €16–19 billion in EU funds remained frozen because of this.
“[Under Orban] Orbán talented people left the country, and it was very difficult to lure them back.”
How Magyar’s Tisza party won the election in only 2 years is piosed to become the stuff of legend.
Bias: “He launched it out of a garage like a startup, through recruiting experts with international experience. So it's like a startup story that can give back the confidence to people and I think that’s huge.”
Until Sunday, Hungary was teetering on the brink of losing even more founders.
Dominik Kovacs, founder of Colossyan (one of Hungary's best AI companies, which has raised a $22M Series A, and has clients on six continents) had told Bias that if Fidesz won again, they would likely have to leave the country.
Bias: “Kovacs and many other founders were actually considering an office in Vienna, not because of growth, but because for survival. Many of their employees actually decided, and already said to the founders that they are planning to relocate if Orban stayed on. Luckily it's not the situation now.”
Official figures show over 367,000 mostly young Hungarians permanently left the country between 2010 and 2025, although many say the real number is likely closer to half a million. And 2024 alone saw a record 41,300 departures. Many brilliant scientists left.
Huszár: “Talented people, a lot of them, have left the country, and not only did they leave the country, it was very difficult to lure them back, or for them to even move back, even if they wanted to. The second thing is the education system hasn't really been upgraded for this last 15 years.”
In PISA 2022, Hungary's mathematics performance fell below the OECD average, a trend that began years before COVID.
Companies like Prezi and Shapr3D helped to put Budapest on the global tech map, but found that recruiting from Western Europe got harder every year, not because of the product or the salary, but because of Hungary's political reputation.
That’s not to say it hasn’t had some success stories. Notable startups include Allonic, which makes robotic bodies; Turbine, which virtualises biological experiments with AI, and Bitrise, a mobile DevOps platform. Plus, 4iG raised $50 million in post-IPO debt, while Turbine secured $25 million in a Series B round.
However, two years ago the Hungarian government created another blocker for the tech industry. It was asked to sign the European Startup Nations Standard of Excellence, which set out a framework designed to fix stock options, tech visas, and startup-friendly regulation. Orban’s government became the only EU country to refuse to sign the document because it mentioned gender diversity (even Bulgaria signed).
“It was pretty embarrassing,” says Bias.
With the country’s reputation around the rule of law plummeting, Hungary’s startups and corporates alike lost deals with international investors and clients.
Plus, currency fluctuations meant every major enterprise deal, compensation package, etc required constant re-budgeting.
A Government startup program designed to support startups was measured on the number of investments made rather than the quality of companies, creating bad incentives all round.
Tisza's upcoming programme does include commitments to a startup-friendly environment, increased innovation spending and venture capital support. However, the execution and the details have yet to arrive.
That said, the startup community now feels it has a government it can actually work with.
It’s hard to understand the scale of what has just happened.
Over 16 years Orbán proceeded to call his government an “Illiberal democracy”. Americans might recognise it as "national conservatism" although most of the time it introduced less than conservative policies. Orbán portrayed himself as an "anti-globalist" but invited German, Chinese and South Korean car makers. He was for national sovereignty, but rejected Ukrainian sovereignty when Russia invaded. He was anti-immigrant but needed cheap labour for his factories. In 2010, he wrote a new constitution, gerrymandering the entire country in his party’s favour. He rigged the courts, the electoral system, and the economy.
Hungary now wants to get back into the tech unicorn game. And that phrase will likely elicit a belly laugh from the average Hungarian.
István Kapitány (Tisza's economy minister-designate, and a former global executive VP) said at one point during the campaign: "We want unicorns, not zebras."
This was in reference to a scandal uncovered during Orban’s era.
Lőrinc Mészáros — Orbán's childhood friend, and Hungary's richest ma, with a $3.2bn fortune put down to "God, luck, and Viktor Orbán" — kept a private zoo with zebras on his land next to the Orbán family's €30m reconstructed Habsburg manor. In September 2025, thousand Hungarians showed up in zebra costumes for an anti-corruption ‘safari tour’. It became the defining symbol of the election.
It looks like Hungary at last has a shot at getting its unicorns.
