25 must-attend startup & VC events in Europe in 2023
The Flyer One Ventures team has compiled a list of events and conferences that will take place in various European cities in 2023 and will be relevant to founders, entrepreneurs, startups, and VCs.
 | Venture Capital World Summit Amsterdam, Netherlands January 30 |
Venture Capital World Summit promises to offer “unprecedented insights” into the world of venture capital and bring entrepreneurs and investors together. Among its guests, its organizers prioritize companies that have operated for over a year, have positive cash flow, can demonstrate intrinsic positive impact, and are likely to generate quality financial returns.
Website: vcworldsummit.com
 | 4YFN Barcelona, Spain February 27 — March 2 |
4YFN is an event for startups, VCs, corporations, and institutions, which goal is to support entrepreneurs and connect them with investors. The program also features the 4YFN Awards, a startup competition aimed at finding the best digital startups around the globe.
Website: 4yfn.com
 | Alpha Wolves London, UK March 8—9 |
Alpha Wolves is a two-day event "connecting capital with business." It helps to learn about what is happening in the startup market and gives an insight into the CEE ecosystem. The event is an exclusive forum for growth-stage companies partnering with venture and growth capital to achieve scale.
Website: wolvessummit.com
 | Startup Day Tartu, Estonia March 15—17 |
Startup Day 2023 calls itself "a business festival" and is bringing together startup-minded people to celebrate entrepreneurship. About 3,900 people from 52 countries attended the conference in 2022, including some 200 investors. It features a stage program, demo area, workshops, pitching competitions, and matchmaking events.
Website: startupday.ee
 | Women in Tech London, UK March 21 |
The Women in Tech Conference, centered around AI and machine learning professionals, promises its guests to help keep up with current tech trends, as well as to give insights about how to drive unbiased recruitment and develop inclusive and diverse cultures in the workplace. Among others, female executives from Vodafone, Amazon, IKEA, Citi, and Barclays will be speakers at this event.
Website: womentechconference.com
 | Investor's Forum 2023 Geneva, Switzerland March 22—23 |
Investor's Forum 2023 is the annual flagship event of Invest Europe, which brings together leading LPs and GPs. The event is designed to provide participants with the latest industry insights and data, high-level debate, and networking opportunities. Attendance is open to pre-qualified institutional investors and Invest Europe member GPs and LP fund-of-funds only.
Website: if.investeurope.eu
 | CEE VC Summit 2023 (Vestbee) Warsaw, Poland March 28—29 |
CEE VC Summit 2023 calls itself "the leading matchmaking platform for startups and investors in CEE."
It is an invitation-only two-day event for 200+ GPs and selected LPs to strengthen regional relations, exchange valuable insight, and bridge the gap with more mature VC ecosystems.
Website: vestbee.com/cee-vc-summit
 | Hamburg Startup Conference 2023 (by Startup Network Europe) Hamburg, Germany April 12 |
Startup Network Europe makes conferences for European Startups, which gather thousands of founders, angel investors, and venture capitalists. One of them will take place in Hamburg, promising to bring hundreds of startup founders and international investors. The more detailed program will be announced in the coming months.
Website: startupnetwork.eu/upcoming-events
 | EU-Startups Summit Barcelona, Spain April 20-21 |
EU-Startups Summit will gather over 2,000 founders, startup enthusiasts, corporates, angel investors, VCs, and media from across Europe. The event is a great opportunity for networking and a meeting point for aspiring entrepreneurs and investors.
Website: eu-startups.com/eu-startups-summit-2023
 | TechChill Riga 2023 Riga, Latvia April 27—28 |
TechChill Riga 2023 calls itself "the main tech and startup event in the Baltics," which promises to bridge the gaps in knowledge, skills, and network. About 2,300 people attended the conference last year, including 200 investors and representatives of 300 startups.
Website: techchill.co
 | Impact'23 Poznan, Poland May 10—11 |
Impact'23 gathers top managers from the most significant global companies, policymakers, regulators, outstanding scientists, as well as world-class experts and speakers. It is defined by the talks and workshops focused on the analysis of future and ongoing social and economic changes.
Website: impactcee.com
 | Tech eu Summit 2023 Brussels, Belgium May 24 |
Tech.eu Summit 2023 is bringing together 1,800 "thinkers and doers" to help shape the best possible future for the European innovation ecosystems. This year, the key focus will be on sustainable growth. Its organizers invite entrepreneurs, investors, corporate leaders, policymakers, academics, and journalists.
Website: tech.eu/event/2023/summit
 | Dublin Tech Summit Dublin, Ireland May 31 – June 1 |
Last year, around 8,000 people attended Dublin Tech Summit, a two-day conference that sits at the heart of the international tech scene. It will feature talks from a broad range of 200 experts, an exhibit area, and networking events.
Website: dublintechsummit.tech
 | SAASTR Europa 2023 London, UK June 6—7 |
SAASTR Europa 2022 brings together 4,000 SaaS founders, VCs, and executives. The program includes over 100 workshops, 1,000 mentorship sessions, and meet-a-VC opportunities with some of the 400 investors coming to the event.
Website: saastrlondon.com
 | Future of Ukraine Summit Berlin, Germany June 7-8 |
The Future of Ukraine is a two-day summit where government members, leaders of Ukraine's tech business, startups, and investors gather to discuss ideas that will define Ukraine's economic rebound. It promises to provide a platform to assist Ukrainian tech-oriented, visionary startups in obtaining international funding and market access.
Website: whysummits.com/the-future-of-ukraine-summit-berlin-2023
 | South Summit Madrid, Spain June 7—9 |
South Summit Madrid is an annual gathering of the key players in the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Spain. Among its most prominent speakers in 2022, there were Sal Khan (Khan Academy), Iker Casillas (Sportboost), Nabeel Ahmed (Facebook), and Solange Alvito (PandaDoc).
Website: southsummit.co/south-summit-mad
 | The Next Web Amsterdam, Netherlands June 15—16 |
The Next Web gathers international tech executives, policymakers, startups, and scale-ups to explore how tech will shape the world of tomorrow. "You get all the benefits of a conference with the energy of a festival — do business, get inspired, meet industry peers, and enjoy every minute of it," reads the event’s website.
Website: thenextweb.com/conference
 | Future of Emerging Europe Summit 2023 Brussels, Belgium June (exact date TBA) |
The Future of Emerging Europe Summit 2023 brings together like-minded individuals, and leading organizations that want to have a meaningful impact on the future of Europe. Its program includes editorial content and reports, promising to create knowledge, generate debate, and identify growth opportunities.
Website: emerging-europe.com/future-of-ee/
 | Bits & Pretzels Munich, Germany September 24—26 |
Bits & Pretzels 2023 offers to join and meet 5,000 founders, investors, and startup enthusiasts for three days "full of learning, networking, and inspiration." Thousands of founders, the world's leading companies, and the most inspiring speakers join this annual festival. Barack Obama, Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Drew Houston (Dropbox), and Margit Wennmachers (Andreessen Horowitz) attended the event in the past.
Website: bitsandpretzels.com/festival-home
 | IT Arena 2023 Lviv, Ukraine September 29 — October 2 |
IT Arena is one of Eastern Europe’s largest tech conferences, annually bringing together about 5,000 tech enthusiasts, executives and software developers from 40 countries. Over the years, it has welcomed representatives of Google, Tesla, Spotify, F1, and Klarna, as well as Ukrainian startups like Liki24.
Website: itarena.ua
 | Sifted Summit London, UK October 4—5 |
Each year, Sifted Summit brings together about 1,500 people. For 2023, it promises to bring more of the usual content and connect 3,000 of “startup Europe’s finest” for two days in London.
Website: summit.sifted.eu
 | SaaStock Dublin, Ireland October 16—19 |
SaaStock aims to help SaaS founders and their teams scale faster. The event promises to provide actionable content and networking opportunities to help you hear the growth stories, learn the proven strategies, and meet the right people to scale your SaaS.
Website: saastock.com
 | Web Summit Lisbon, Portugal November 13-16 |
Web Summit is considered a must-attend by industry members from across the world. Every year, it gathers CEOs of some of the biggest technology companies (Amazon, Airbnb, Apple, Revolut, Microsoft), the founders of forward-thinking startups, policymakers, heads of state, and more. About 70,000 people attend the event each year.
Website: websummit.com
 | Untold Stories Conference Budapest, Hungary November |
Untold Stories Conference is a two-day founder-centric event that helps you "get in the same room with the CEE region's most successful startup entrepreneurs." According to Emerging Europe, the event gives "dreamers" an opportunity "to meet those who turned their dreams into reality." Last year, the event was supported by Google Cloud and Microsoft.
Website: untoldstoriesconference.com
 | Slush Helsinki, Finland November — December |
Slush positions itself as “the world’s leading startup event.” About 4,600 startup founders and managers, 2,600 investors and some 400 journalists flock to it each year for networking, stage debates, and its startup competition. Among the event's main partners in 2022, there were Google, Nokia, Microsoft, and PWC.
Website: slush.org/events/helsinki
Cover photo by Anastasiia Ruan on Unsplash