Top European (+Nordic and Baltic) Startup Events for the Rest of 2015

At ArcticStartup, we’re event junkies. We have a portfolio of our own events and 2016 will bring some additions to that and you will hear about it later. With CoFounder we have partnered with many events to deliver the magazine straight into your hands – In case you haven’t ordered it yet to be delivered straight to your home.

First part of 2015 already had many great events, but before 2016 arrives, let’s have a look at what else is out there and which bigger European events especially interests us for the remainder of the year. You’ll also find a separate list of interesting events in the Nordics and Baltic region.

But first, let’s get you on the right mindset on why you are going to events, how to prepare and how to act there.

The Battleplan

“He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.”

Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Going to a conference you should plan well and have proper goals set to maximize the effort and get proper return on your investment of time and money. Whether you are looking to get some media exposure, to nail an angel investor or perhaps to acquire new users or customers, you need to have it clear in your mind and prepare well. Choosing the right spots, clothing and conversation styles will put you in a good position to get that ROI. When setting your goals, also evaluate the event looking at chances of you to actually being able to achieve those goals in that particular event. To learn more, check out ArcticStartup’s Battleplan article from last year and prepare yourself!

The Events

Bits & Prezels Munich, 27-29 September Tickets from 399€

Bits & Pretzels is a 3 day conference for founders and people from the startup ecosystem with over 3.600 attendees, bringing together leading entrepreneurs and investors to share their ideas. And how does ending the conference at Oktoberfest tent with a two liter beer sound? Pretty cool!

Their speaker list includes the likes of Phil Libin (Co-founder and Chairman of Evernote), Herbert Hainer (CEO of Adidas Group), Karl Hopfner (President of Bayer Munich) and Peter Arvai (Co-founder and CEO of Prezi). For connecting the ecosystem they have a “Table Captain group” which consists of renowned founders, journalists and investors who mingle and network with young founders and all other participants.

South Summit Madrid, 7-9 October Tickets FREE/300

South Summit gathers the greatest innovations from Southern Europe and Latin America and connects them to some of the regions’ largest customers and investors. With more than 7.000 attendees, including 3.500 entrepreneurs and 450 investors South Summit is strongly battling for the position of the number one startup conference of Southern Europe, especially as LeWeb is taking a break this year.

South Summit is organized at Las Ventas, a fully operational bullring, and the fact that the basic conference ticket is free-of-charge, gives everyone a great chance to experience the event in this fascinating venue.

This year’s speakers include Gwynn Shotwell (President and COO at SpaceX), Eze Vidra (General Partner at Google Ventures), Barry Schuler (Managing Director for DFJ Growth and the former Chairman/CEO of America Online Inc), David Brown (Co-founder and Managing Partner of Techstars), Christina Bechhold (Co-Founder and Managing Director of Empire Angels) and Renaud Visage (Co-founder and CTO of Eventbrite).

Webrazzi Istanbul, 21-22 October Tickets from 600€

Webrazzi Summit 2015 is a premium internet event and will cover a range of topics including Digital Marketing, Social Media, E-commerce, Venture Capital, Angel Investment, Online Gaming, Mobile Applications and more. As speakers they bring in partners from Greylock Partners and Y Combinator and many of the biggest Turkish investors who are looking for international opportunities.

As Webrazzi is a premium event, it sells out so be fast to grab your tickets.

ArcticStartup has partnered with Webrazzi to give you 15% discount on the ticket price using code: Discount_ArcticStartup.

Web Summit Dublin, 3-5 November Tickets from 725€

It’s been called “the best technology conference on the planet” with the attendee numbers growing hugely year-by-year, hitting 22,000+ last year and expecting over 30,000 this year. Speakers are world class, and the networking, as they put it, is “simply legendary”. They have hired a group of data scientists to match your Pub Crawl with perfect drinking buddies.

This year the stage will be occupied by exciting and hot industry names like Stewart Butterfield (Co-founder and CEO of Slack), Sean Rad (Co-founder and President of Tinder), Mike Krieger (Co-founder of Instagram) and Palmer Luckey (Founder of OculusVR). In the 800 speaker roster and 21 special industry summits inside the event, there is something for everyone.

On the investor side, well the list is too long and impressive to put here, so just have a look yourself here.

The size of Web Summit is overwhelming and you may need to compromise between walking 15 mins one way to have a lunch or keep networking until you starve. Look for (and ask event sponsors directly at their booths) about cool after parties as there are plenty, some of them with free beer included! Finding a decently priced accommodation is a challenge, so book yours well in advance. Also prepare you battleplan and study the venue map well.

ArcticStartup has partnered with Web Summit to offer a limited amount of discounted tickets for our readers. To get 20% off your ticket, act fast as we have a quota of just 20 tickets. Use code: WMD8735jm


Websummit 2014 Photo: Websummit’s Facebook

Slush Helsinki, 10-12 November Tickets from 295€

Being the biggest startup conference in the Northern Europe, Slush is the focal point for startups and tech talent to meet with top-tier international investors, executives and media. In 2014, Slush brought together over 14.000 attendees and more than 3500 companies for the two-day event. The atmosphere last year was amazing with super cool light and laser show as Slush took over a new venue. Slush100 pitching competition winner got 500k€ investment which in the end turned into 750k€, so maybe it’s going to be a cool million this year! New addition is The Investor Day on Nov 10th before the Main Event starts on 11th. Lots of side events and parties ahead.

New for 2015 is Slush Hacks which will turn Helsinki during the weekend before Slush into a mega hackathon venue and the winner of each hack will be taken to Slush where they have an opportunity to pitch their ideas in front of a live audience and investor jury.

Major difference compared to other such events is that Slush is a non-profit event organized by a community of entrepreneurs, investors and students, engaging over a thousand volunteers every year to get involved in the startup scene.

2015 speaker list has couple of regulars and some new names with the likes of Ilkka Paananen (Founder of Supercell), Niklas Zennström (Co-
founder of Skype &
Atomico), Riccardo Zacconi (Founder and CEO of King), Phil Libin (Co-founder of Evernote) Kristo Käärmann (Co-founder and CEO of TransferWise) and Neelie Kroes (Former VP of European Comission)

2014 Slush was attended by close to 700 journalists, so the chances of sitting down with one or two are high, but the competition will be fierce so plan your tactics well and identify who you want to meet beforehand.


Slush 2014 Photo: Jussi Hellsten

DIGIT.EMEA by Webit Istanbul, 18-19 November Tickets starting from 250€

Building on the success of the Global Webit Congress from the past 7 years, DIGIT.EMEA is a special event paving the digital economy future and welcoming thousands of C-level global leaders, digital and tech entrepreneurs and founders from 110 countries.

DIGIT.EMEA is the world’s startup friendly enterprise event providing all needed ingredients for the enterprise world to innovate through collaboration with the hottest global startups.

Twice a month they select 30 startups to exhibit for free as part of their #FounderGames grant. Beyond the free expo table, the startups receive further opportunities and access to investors and corporates, but you need to buy two startup tickets to confirm your presence.

Speakers announced include Marc Mathieu (Global SVP Marketing of Unilever), Katie Jacobs Stanton (VP of Global Media at Twitter), Sonny Vu (Founder of Misfit Wearables), Dmitry Chikhachev (Co-founder of Runa Capital) and Paul Rossi (President of The Economist Media)

TechCrunch Disrupt London, London 7-8 December Tickets from 360£/780£

TechCrunch Disrupt is one of the most anticipated technology conferences of the year in London. Join us at this iconic startup and thought leadership event, as like last year, we’ll be setting up our own “Arctic Pavilion” to showcase 20 great startups from the Nordics and Baltics. Startups have to be under 3 years old and have less than 3M in funding to join the pavilion. Last time one of our pavilion companies got into a live interview with BBC World News and other one was featured in the Evening Standard. You’ll learn more about this opportunity very soon, but if you have a massive urge to sign-up already now, send an email to jan (at) arcticstartup.com to grab this opportunity before everyone else. We have only 20 spots! Finnish startups may be eligible for a 50% discount for the whole package with special government support.

Disrupt will have about 3,000 participants and they claim to have a massive 50/50 startup-investor ratio as the main purpose of the event is to present startups to the investors and the media. The event kicks off with a weekend Hackathon and the winners get a chance to present on stage at the main event. The very heart of the event is the Startup Battlefield competition which culminates in six finalists taking the stage at the end of the event for a shot at winning the Disrupt Cup and the £30,000 main prize plus a lot of media visibility as a bonus. For more information and to apply for the Startup Battlefield visit http://apply.techcrunch.com/ and submit your application by September 23rd.

As usual, they are still holding on the speaker names for this year, and have so far announced only few, but very interesting names. The Rimer brothers from Index Ventures, Rocket Internet’s Oliver Samwer and Niklas Östberg (Co-founder and CEO of Deliver Hero) but we can expect some impressive names to be added as previous speakers includes the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and Marissa Mayer.

Special Update:

During Challengers in June, six European tech events agreed to something new and unique. Meet Startup Sesame, which opens doors to all six events with one pass. Now you will be able to grab your bundle ticket to Arctic15, Challengers, Pioneers Festival, Slush, Tech Open Air and Webrazzi for a mere 1000€, and get a chance to be selected for a free pass to all of them! Open to all European entrepreneurs, Startup Sesame connects founders with conferences to help them grow faster. More info and the first batch of tickets can be found at http://www.startupsesame.com/.

Other interesting events in the Nordics and Baltics

MindTrek Tampere, September 22-24 – Tickets from 109€

International three-day forum about the future of open source, open data & open content.

Digital Health Days Stockholm, September 23-24. Tickets starting from 690SEK

Nordic Digital Business Summit Helsinki, September 24 – Tickets 300€

International conference and exhibition held in Helsinki, Finland focusing on the Data Centre, Cloud and Internet of Things/Industrial Internet sectors.

Biohacker Summit Helsinki, September 24 – Tickets starting from 299€

Biohacker Summit is the exclusive international event for pioneers in quantified self and biohacking.

Oslo Innovation Week Oslo, October 12-16 Mix of free and paid events

Oslo Innovation Week is 5 days packed with over 60 different events – talks, seminars, debates, workshops, expos, speed dates, crowdfunding events, open houses and networking events.

Norwegian Investment Forum Oslo, October 15 – Tickets 3,999 NOK

The largest annual venture capital event in Norway gathering together 300+ attendees.

Digital Winners Oslo Oslo, October 21-22 – Tickets 5,900 NOK + VAT

Over the course if two days, 50+ speakers will give fresh and thought provoking perspectives on innovation and digital business opportunities.

Helsinki Founder Night out Helsinki, October 22 – FREE

Trondheim Developer Conference Trondheim, October 26 – Tickets 2,500 NOK +VAT

Øredev conference Malmö, November 3-6 – Tickets from 7,700 SEK (1 Day)

Aimed at developers, Øredev conference with courses and tutorials will be held at the Slagthuset, Exhibition & Convention Center.

Startup Borgen Copenhagen, Oct 30 – Nov 1 – FREE

This Startup Weekend-type event has a special venue – Christiansborg, home to Denmark’s parliament. The theme for this year is IoT

Nordic Venture Forum Copenhagen, November 5th – Tickets free/300€

Silicon Valley Comes to Baltics Riga, November 6-8 – Tickets from 19€

Speakers from Silicon Valley. 800 participants from all over Europe.

Sime Stockholm, November 10-11 – Tickets 8,640 SEK + VAT (30% off for international guests)

The theme for this year is Exponential Transformation.

StartupSafary Copenhagen Copenhagen, November 19-20 – Tickets from 50 DKK

Two-day open doors event to showcase the regional startup ecosystem.

Internet Discovery Day Stockholm, November 24 – FREE

IDD is
the e
vent where entrepreneurs find what they need and investors find the next big thing.

If you notice there’s some events missing from your region, please let us know about the the event in the comments section – And we’ll update the article.