From a podcast to a European startup summit
The story behind Startup Summit Lisbon 2026.
It started with a podcast
Startup Summit began with The Innovation Conversation —
a podcast hosted by Ricardo Pascual featuring founders, investors and operators
from across Europe. Each episode surfaced the same recurring need: founders
wanted real rooms, real conversations and direct access to investors — not
another mass-scale tech conference.
The first London event
That signal turned into a first in-person event in London — small, focused,
founder-led. When the microphone failed mid-event, the host carried on with a
megaphone. The room stayed, the conversations kept going, and the format
worked: a founder-first event where access matters more than scale.
From London to Madrid, Berlin and Lisbon
From that first London room the StartUp Events network grew across European
capitals — London, Madrid, Berlin and beyond — bringing together founders,
operators and investors in curated rooms rather than mass-scale halls.
Why Startup Summit Lisbon 2026 exists
Startup Summit Lisbon 2026 is the flagship of that network: a founder-first
European startup conference at Beato Innovation District in Lisbon, on
September 17–18, 2026. It is targeting 2,000+ founders, investors and
operators, with 150+ speakers planned and 200+ startup booths planned across
three stages — built for qualified founder-investor matchmaking rather than
scale.
Community first
Every part of the summit — from the agenda to the booth layout, from the
Founder Social to the investor office hours — is designed to put founders in
front of the right investors, partners and customers.
About Startup Summit ·
Press & Media Kit ·
Tickets
