More than 40 startup and tech events are worth a founder’s attention in 2027, spread across the whole year from January to December. This guide lists the ones with dates, what each is best for, and how to get in. It covers North America, Europe, the Nordics and Baltics, Latin America, and Asia and the Middle East. Separate chapters cover city-wide tech weeks, health tech and biotech events.
Dates were last reviewed on November 6, 2026. Organizers move dates and venues, so treat the organizer’s own site as the final word. Conference attendance alone does not establish U.S. immigration eligibility; get individualized legal advice before relying on an event, investment or partnership in a visa or green-card case.
Meet Stelmakh & Associates in 2027
Stelmakh & Associates is a Seattle-based business immigration law firm. We help founders, technology professionals, researchers and people of extraordinary ability with U.S. visas and green cards, including O-1, EB-1A, EB-2 NIW, H-1B, L-1 and E-2, and we serve clients worldwide. You can find us at:
- eMerge Americas (March 3–4, Miami Beach): visit our booth to talk about U.S. expansion and immigration planning for international startups.
- Web Summit Vancouver (May 25–28) and
- Web Summit Rio (June 14–17): we are partnering with both events. Come say hello if you are weighing U.S. incorporation, hiring, fundraising or relocation.
Planning to relocate, hire, fundraise or expand in the United States? Book a consultation or call +1 (206) 605-0550.
North America
Startup Grind Conference (April 26–28, Redwood City, CA). The 15th edition of Startup Grind’s flagship event brings 5,000+ founders, investors and builders to Silicon Valley, with an AI-native and fundraising focus. The organizer describes three days of programming, and it accepts speaker nominations, including self-nominations. Best for early-stage founders who want investor pitches and peer learning.
Web Summit Vancouver (May 25–28, Vancouver Convention Centre). Web Summit’s North American edition drew more than 20,000 attendees in 2026 and returns in 2027 under a three-year agreement with the city. It mixes main-stage keynotes, a startup exhibition, investor programming and evening Night Summit events. Startups can apply to the startup program, which includes the PITCH competition, and speakers can apply to speak.
Toronto Tech Week (May 31 – June 4). A week of events across Toronto rather than a single venue, so the best value comes from picking the founder- and investor-focused sessions. It lands right after Web Summit Vancouver, which makes a two-stop Canada trip practical.
Startupfest (July 7–9, Grand Quai, Montréal). Canada’s longest-running startup event is part festival and part investor pipeline, built around a waterfront village with mentor office hours, braindates and pitch competitions. It advertises more than $1M in prizes for 2027. Best for seed-stage founders who want approachable investors and mentors.
GCVI Summit (February 23–25, Monterey, CA). A corporate venture and innovation gathering aimed at investors and the corporates that back startups. A good fit if you are raising from strategic or corporate investors.
eMerge Americas (March 3–4, Miami Beach Convention Center, Miami Beach, FL). Miami’s flagship technology and startup event. Its mobile app uses AI-enabled matchmaking, so attendees can book meetings before the show opens. Best for founders and investors building across the U.S. and Latin America.
SXSW (March 15–21, Austin, TX). The Innovation Conference runs March 15–20 and sits alongside film, music and comedy programming, with SXSW EDU on March 13–16. It is a strong stage for early-stage companies through SXSW Pitch, a competition judged by investors and media. Applications for SXSW Pitch and the speaking proposal platform opened in June 2026, so check current deadlines on the participation page before planning.
SelectUSA Investment Summit (May 2–5, Gaylord National Resort, National Harbor, MD). The U.S. Department of Commerce’s annual summit on foreign investment into the United States. It brings together international companies, state and local economic development organizations, and service providers, and the 2026 edition was billed as drawing more than 5,500 attendees from over 100 countries. Best for founders from abroad who are weighing a U.S. expansion. The organizers run a call for speakers for 2027.
CES (January 6–9, Las Vegas, NV). The world’s biggest consumer-technology show, with an estimated 148,000 attendees. It opens the year and is best for hardware, mobility and consumer-AI startups looking for press, partners and distributors.
Europe
Europe’s calendar peaks in June, with Amsterdam, Madrid and Paris all hosting major events within about three weeks.
VivaTech (June 16–19, Paris Expo Porte de Versailles). Europe’s biggest startup and tech show; the 2026 edition passed 200,000 visitors, with 15,000+ startups and about 4,000 investors. Best for visibility, corporate partnerships and investor access at scale.
South Summit Madrid (June 2–4). One of Southern Europe’s main startup events, with a Deeptech Forum, an AI Forum and a Founders x Founders track. The organizer reports 18,000+ attendees and 7,000+ startups.
Hello Tomorrow Summit (June 1–3, Amsterdam). Part of Deep Tech Days, with 3,000+ founders, climate-tech investors and research-driven startups. It centers on AI, synthetic biology and quantum computing, with pitch competitions on its Pioneer Stage.
Money20/20 Europe (June 8–10, Amsterdam RAI). The main European stage for fintech, payments and digital banking, with institutional funds, regulators and scale-ups from 100+ countries. Best for fintech founders; it is deal-driven.
Tech Festival (June 9–10, Expo Houten). Focused on Dutch and European digital infrastructure. A good fit for networking with regional tech leads, B2B software teams and local founders.
Identity Week Europe (June 15–16, Amsterdam RAI). Brings together 4,000+ professionals and 250+ exhibitors. A strong target for startups in biometrics, deepfake detection, cybersecurity and secure access.
TNW Conference (June 18–19, NDSM Shipyard, Amsterdam). A business conference with a festival feel, popular with early-to-mid-stage product teams, founders and VCs.
EU-Startups Summit (May 13–14, Mediterranean Conference Centre, Valletta, Malta). The 13th edition of the EU-Startups flagship expects about 2,500 founders, angels, VCs, corporates and media. Its pitch competition features 15 early-stage finalists, and the organizer cites a prize package worth €1 million. The summit is known for a high investor-to-startup ratio at its size. Best for seed-stage European founders.
GITEX AI Serbia (May 25–27, Belgrade Fair, Serbia). The first Southeast European edition of the GITEX series and the official tech event of EXPO 2027 Belgrade. It includes GITEX North Star Serbia, a showcase for startups and scaleups from Central and Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe and the Western Balkans. Some listings show the main days as May 26–27, so confirm the schedule. For scale, the 2026 GITEX AI Europe edition in Berlin hosted 800+ companies and startups and 600+ investors.
Bits & Pretzels Founders Festival (September 27–29, Munich). A founder festival with two conference days at the International Congress Center Munich and a networking day inside the Oktoberfest. It caps attendance at about 7,500 and uses verified-application tickets for startups, scaleups and investors, so apply early. Best for founders who want curated investor meetings.
MWC Barcelona and 4YFN (March 1–4, Barcelona, Spain). The global connectivity industry’s annual gathering, with an estimated 105,000 attendees. 4YFN hosts the startup program alongside it. Best for startups in telecom, mobile, infrastructure and AI.
START Summit (March 18–19, St. Gallen, Switzerland). A student-run startup and tech summit with an estimated 7,000 attendees. Best for early-stage founders who want to meet students, investors and corporates in one place.
Dublin Tech Summit (May 26–27, Dublin, Ireland). A two-day gathering of about 8,000 people from Ireland’s tech and startup scene and beyond. It overlaps Web Summit Vancouver, so choose one or the other.
Nordics and Baltics
The Nordic calendar runs from January to September, with Slush in Helsinki closing the year in November. The Baltic events are short hops from Helsinki and Stockholm. Several Nordic events have no 2027 dates yet; Slush, Nordic Fintech Summit and Oslo Innovation Week are in the table of dates still to be announced.
sTARTUp Day (January 26–28, Tartu, Estonia). A university-city startup gathering with about 2,500 attendees. A good early-year stop for Baltic founders and investors.
Techarena (February 17–18, Stockholm). The Nordic startup and investor stage in Stockholm’s winter calendar. Best for founders raising in Sweden and the wider Nordics.
TechChill (March 18–19, Riga, Latvia). A Baltic startup and investor event with about 2,000 attendees. The 2026 edition ran March 25–27.
Latitude59 (May 19–21, Tallinn, Estonia). One of the Baltic region’s main startup conferences, with about 3,500 attendees. The 2026 edition ran May 21–22.
Arctic15 (June 16–17, Helsinki). A Nordic startup and investor conference with about 3,300 attendees. It overlaps VivaTech and Web Summit Rio, so plan around it.
TechBBQ (September 8–9, Bella Center, Copenhagen). The Nordics’ largest startup and innovation summit, with more than 10,000 founders, investors and builders in 2026. It moves from August to September in 2027.
Slush (Helsinki; 2027 dates to be announced). The most founder-focused event on the calendar, built around matchmaking: about 13,000 attendees, roughly one investor for every two founders, and more than 20,000 pre-booked meetings. The 2026 edition runs November 18–19.
Tech weeks
A tech week is a city-wide series of events hosted by startups, VCs and companies rather than one venue. Entry is often cheaper or free, but many hosts approve registrations individually, so apply early and pick the founder- and investor-focused sessions.
Toronto Tech Week (May 31 – June 4, Toronto). The third edition of Canada’s largest grassroots tech event, run by a volunteer non-profit. BetaKit’s Most Ambitious Town Hall opens the week on May 31. The first edition in 2025 drew more than 15,000 attendees to over 300 events, and organizers are courting more international visitors in 2027. It starts three days after Web Summit Vancouver ends, so a two-stop Canada trip is practical.
London Tech Week (June 7–11, Olympia London). The UK’s largest technology festival. The expo and content stages run at Olympia June 7–9, and a fringe program runs across the city for all five days. Best for early-stage startups looking to meet investors and enterprise buyers. Tickets were pre-registration only as of this review.
Tech Week by a16z (cities and dates for 2027 to be announced). A decentralized tech conference presented by Andreessen Horowitz, with hundreds of independently organized events in each host city. In 2026 it visited Boston (May 26–31), New York (June 1–7), San Francisco (October 5–11) and Los Angeles (October 12–18). Hosts approve registrations, so apply as soon as a city’s calendar opens.
Seattle AI Week (2027 dates to be announced). The 2026 edition ran October 26–30. It pairs with Seattle’s recurring founder meetups, such as New Tech Seattle’s monthly events.
Health tech and biotech
Researchers turning lab work into companies should look at Bio-IT World, HLTH Europe and HLTH below, and at Hello Tomorrow, the deep-tech summit in the Europe chapter.
Bio-IT World Conference & Expo (May 18–20, Boston). Life-sciences data, AI and informatics, with roughly 2,800 to 3,000 attendees. Best for biotech and techbio founders and for the research-IT and talent teams that hire internationally.
ViVE (March 14–17, Nashville, TN). A digital health event from the HLTH organizers, aimed at health-system leaders, startups and investors.
HLTH Europe (June 21–24, Amsterdam). Europe’s HLTH edition includes startup pitch events and discounted startup tickets. Best for healthtech founders and investors in Europe.
HLTH (October 17–20, Las Vegas, NV). The flagship U.S. edition, and the main fall stop for health-tech founders targeting American buyers and investors.
BioTechX Europe 2027 will take place from 11 to 13 October 2027 at Messe Basel in Basel, Switzerland. The 2027 dates for BioTechX USA in Boston have not been announced as for November 6, 2006.
Latin America
Web Summit Rio (June 14–17, Riocentro, Rio de Janeiro). Latin America’s largest tech gathering expects more than 40,000 participants, about 1,500 startups and 700 investors. Best for founders targeting Brazil and the wider Latin American market, or investors scouting there. Startups can apply to the startup program, and speakers can apply to speak.
Asia and the Middle East
Money20/20 Asia (April 27–29, Bangkok, Thailand). The Asian edition of the global fintech series that also runs in Amsterdam, Las Vegas and Riyadh. Best for fintech and payments startups looking at Southeast Asian markets.
Startup Mahakumbh (March 12–14, India). One of India’s largest startup gatherings, with an estimated 100,000 attendees. Confirm the city and program on the organizer’s site. Best for founders connecting with the Indian ecosystem.
Web Summit Qatar (January 31 – February 3, Doha, Qatar). Web Summit’s Middle East edition, with an estimated 30,000 attendees. Best for founders and investors looking at Gulf markets.
Our partners and their events
SFPlayground (San Francisco). A venture network that connects startups, investors and customers through curated events. Its Pitch Playoff nights put physical-AI and hardware startups on stage for live demos, with the audience voting and the top teams pitching to an investor panel; recent nights drew between 225 and 556 attendees. It also hosts themed summits such as AI Healthtech, AI Data Center, Industrial AI, and AI Law, Compliance and GovTech. Best for AI, robotics and hardware founders who want demo-driven exposure in the Bay Area.
Gatherly (Toronto). A virtual-event platform that builds multi-floor online venues with expo booths and networking spaces. It also runs the Gatherly Venture Expo, a recurring online founder and investor expo; the Q2 2026 edition was co-hosted with Toronto Tech Week. Best for founders who want investor and ecosystem exposure without travel.
TechEmbassy. UAtech is a non-profit initiative that supports Ukrainian tech founders worldwide. Its UAtech Venture Night series stages open pitch competitions, expert panels and networking alongside major events, including TechCrunch Disrupt, Web Summit in Lisbon, Vancouver and Rio, Sifted Summit and city tech weeks. TechEmbassy works with UAtech and adds partner programs such as co-branded webinars and a community app. Best for early-stage international founders looking for pitch practice and a diaspora network. 2027 stops are likely to follow the big conferences, but none are published yet.
Dates still to be announced
These events are expected in 2027, but organizers had not published dates as of November 6, 2026. They fill in the quiet months: August, November and December. The 2026 dates below are for reference only; the 2027 edition is usually close to the same time of year.
| Event | Location | Typical timing | 2026 edition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Global Entrepreneurship Summit | Toronto, Canada (hybrid) | August | Aug 19–20 |
| BioTechX USA | Boston, MA | Late September | Sep 29–30 |
| TechCrunch Disrupt | San Francisco, CA | Mid-October | Oct 13–15, Moscone West |
| Oslo Innovation Week | Oslo, Norway | October | Oct 19–23 |
| GeekWire Summit | Seattle, WA | October | October |
| Web Summit Lisbon | Lisbon, Portugal | November | Nov 9–12 |
| Slush | Helsinki, Finland | November | Nov 18–19, Messukeskus |
| Digital Tech Summit | Copenhagen, Denmark | Early November | Nov 4–5 |
| AWS re:Invent | Las Vegas, NV | Late November to early December | Nov 30 – Dec 4 |
| Abu Dhabi Finance Week | Abu Dhabi, UAE | Early December | Dec 7–10 |
| Fortune Brainstorm AI | San Francisco, CA | Early December | Dec 7–8 |
| COMEUP | Seoul, South Korea | Early December | Dec 9–11 |
| Tech Week by a16z | Boston, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles | Spring and fall | May 26 – Oct 18 across four cities |
| Nordic Fintech Summit | Helsinki, Finland | May | May 20–22 |
| GCV Symposium | London, UK | Late June | Jun 23–24 |
| TiE Global Summit | India | Early January | Jan 4–6, Jaipur |
| Women’s Venture Capital Summit | Half Moon Bay, CA | Early February | Feb 2–4 |
| Rise Up Summit | Cairo, Egypt | May | May 8–10 |
| WAWTech | Warsaw, Poland | November or December | 2025 edition: Dec 16–17, Warsaw EXPO XXI |
| GITEX Global and Expand North Star | Dubai, UAE | October | Check organizer |
| TechCrunch All Stage | Boston, MA | Spring | Check organizer |
TechCrunch Disrupt draws 10,000+ founders and VCs and is built around the Startup Battlefield pitch competition. Web Summit Lisbon is the largest of the Web Summit events, with 70,000+ attendees, and it runs a startup program called ALPHA. Slush is known for matchmaking, with about 13,000 attendees and a roughly one-to-two investor-to-founder ratio.
Watch each organizer’s site for announcements; early-bird pricing usually opens soon after dates are set.
How to speak, pitch or exhibit
Application routes are collected here so you do not have to hunt through each listing. Windows open and close on the organizer’s schedule, so confirm deadlines on each site.
| Event | Route | Apply | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Web Summit Vancouver | Startup program (includes PITCH); speaker application | Startups · Speakers | Speaker applications were open as of this review. |
| Web Summit Rio | Startup program; speaker application | Startups · Speakers | Pick a topic that matters to Brazil and Latin America rather than a generic company pitch. |
| Startup Grind Conference | Speaker nomination or self-nomination | Suggest a speaker | The organizer wants firsthand experience and a real conversation, not a company pitch. |
| SXSW | PanelPicker session proposals; SXSW Pitch startup competition | Apply to participate | Windows for a March event usually close the previous autumn, so check status now. |
| SelectUSA Investment Summit | Call for speakers | Summit site | Best for founders, investors and executives with a concrete U.S.-expansion or investment story. |
| VivaTech, 4YFN, Hello Tomorrow, Slush, TechCrunch Disrupt, GITEX | Startup programs and pitch competitions | Organizer sites | Check each site once its 2027 program opens. |
A reusable speaker pitch
- Working title: What [specific audience] gets wrong about [specific problem].
- Audience: founders, investors, operators or researchers in [sector].
- Three takeaways: a practical framework, a real example or dataset, and one next step.
- Why you: one sentence on direct experience, evidence or a non-obvious perspective.
- Why now: what has changed that makes the topic urgent.
- No-pitch promise: you will share lessons, not sell your company.
Emphasize expertise, evidence and a differentiated point of view. Organizers such as Startup Grind explicitly favor real conversations over polished company pitches.
Tips for founders
Pick two or three events that match your stage and market, rather than trying to attend them all.
- Match the event to your goal. Raising a seed round points to Startup Grind, Startupfest or Slush. Selling to enterprises points to VivaTech or London Tech Week. Fintech, deep tech and identity startups have dedicated events in Amsterdam.
- Apply early for startup programs. Web Summit runs application-based startup programs, and Startup Grind sells exhibition packages that include tickets and a pitch to investors. Both fill up and prices rise as the date approaches.
- Book meetings before you arrive. Most large events use a matchmaking app. Investors’ calendars fill in the weeks before the show.
- Use the fringe. At city-wide weeks such as London and Toronto, side events are often cheaper and more focused than the main conference.
- Plan travel documents early. If you are traveling from outside the destination country, check visa or travel-authorization rules as soon as you buy a ticket. Web Summit says it can provide a letter confirming your attendance but does not handle visas or refund tickets over visa failures.
- Follow up within a week. Log every contact the same day, and send a short, specific note while the conversation is fresh.