The Best Annual Tech Startup Events In Europe

Well, I guess I’m about to be shot down here. For a while I’ve been contemplating a post about all the annual events in Europe which are specifically relevant to tech startups. Now when I say that, I do not mean hacker meetups in bars, or monthly events in various European cities. I mean Annual conferences and events where you will find startups, tech entrepreneurs and investors either milling about at a big general event on innovation (like DLD) or pitching on stage at a conference like TechCrunch Disrupt. You will notice there are no URLs yet. When I get time I will add them (you can always use Google). For now I just wanted to get this post out there for you to look at and kick the tyres on.

Yes, I know I have missed out the many, many monthly or quarterly meetups around Europe in various cities. That is not the point. The point is to surface the best annual events. I have been to many of them, so in some ways this is a personal list, in other ways I’ve tried to highlight others I have not attended but which I’ve heard are good. In addition, the majority – if not all – of these events are for an international audience so are held in English. I have tried not to included annual events which are only tailored to a single country and held in a local language.

You will also notice I have not put in dates. That’s what your favourite search engine is for, so use it. What I wanted to achieve here was to show the ‘travelling circus’ of tech startups events as they appear roughly week-by-week in Europe, thus Week 1, Week 2 etc. This could also help event planners.

Clearly not all these events overlap and in some months there is more like 5 weeks than 4. If I have gotten anything really badly wrong then leave a comment below and I will adjust the listing.

Also, I have included significant US events which European startups may want to attend. I have not included events in Asia, for which I apologise. This is more about US/European event traffic.

Yes, some have notes attached, like Recommended, or Interesting. To be honest, ALL of them are interesting, but some are more off the beaten track than others and deserve a mention. To all my friends who run conferences that don’t get a mention, I apologise – you are all great. Feel free to remind me about yours in the comments if I’ve missed anyone.

I hope everyone finds this useful. I will try to keep maintaining this post so that it remains up to date. Enjoy.

JANUARY

• Week 1
CES, Las Vegas

• Week 3
DLD, Munich – Invited / Ticketed – Recommended
WEF / Davos – Invite Only (increasingly full of tech companies)
MIDEM, Cannes
The Crunchies Awards (TechCrunch) – Recommended
The Europas – The European Tech Startup Awards

FEBRUARY

• Week 2
Social Media Week (Multiple global cities)

• Week 3
London Fashion Week (big for Fashion tech startups)

• Week 4
LIFT, Geneva
Mobile World Congress – Recommended
Unofficial “Heroes of the Mobile Fringe” Festival, Barcelona – Recommended
TechCrunch Meetup Barcelona at MWC – Recommended

MARCH

• Week 1
CeBit, Hannover

• Week 2
SXSW Interactive – Recommended
Startup Camp Berlin

• Week 3
London Web Summit – Recommended

• Week 4
The Guardian Changing Media Summit
ArabNet, Beirut – Recommended

APRIL

• Week 1
GDOL Digital Talkfest, Istanbul – Interesting

• Week 2
Innotechsummit, London

• Week 3
DEMO, Santa Clara
Balkan Venture Forum

• Week 4
“London Big Data Week” events, (crowd-sourced)
CapitalOnStage, London
The Next Web, Amsterdam – Recommended

MAY

• Week 1
Berlin Web Week / re:publica – Recommended

• Week 2

CTIA – Recommended for Mobile
Net Prophet, South Africa – Interesting
NEXT Conference, Berlin – Recommended
Heureka, Berlin – New

• Week 3
Kinnernet, Israel – Invite only
FutureEverything Festival, Manchester
Bilbaowebsummit.com
Cannes Film Festival, Cannes – Good for media startups

• Week 4
Disrupt NYC – Recommended
LOGIN.LT, Vilnius – Interesting
MLove Berlin – Interesting
DLD Moscow – Invited / ticketed
Thinking Digital, UK – Interesting

JUNE

• Week 1
The D Conference, California
Overtheair.org, London – Interesting for mobile startups

• Week 2
Latitude 59, Tallin – Interesting for the Baltics

• Week 2
Microsoft BizSpark European Summit

• Week 3
F.ounders NYC – Invite Only
SWITCH Conference, Portugal
Cannes Lions, Cannes – Good for media/advertising startups
Startup2Bilbao, Bilbao
ICT Spring Europe, Luxembourg

• Week4
LEWEB LONDON – Recommended
FoundersForum.eu, London – Invite Only
EU Digital Agenda Assembly, Brussels (Tedious clash!)
Menorca Tech Talk, Menorca – Invite Only
Forum SPB, St. Petersburg
Noah, San Francisco – Interesting for late-stage startups
TED Global, Edinburgh
Innovate Israel, London

JULY

• Week 2
DLD Women, Munich

AUGUST

• Week 1
Seedcamp Week and Seedsummit London – Invite only, but Recommended
Young Rewired State, UK

• Week 3
Campus Party Berlin
Tech Open Air Berlin
Turing Tech Festival Edinburgh
Burning Man, Nevada

SEPTEMBER

• Week 1
IFA, Berlin
Digital Derry, N. Ireland

• Week 2
DConstruct, Brighton
Geekcon, Israel
Moo.com Summer Party – Fun!

• Week 3
TechCrunch Disrupt SF – Recommended
Pirate Summit, Cologne
DM Ex Co, Cologne – Advertising startups / Germany
Webexpo.net, Prague
WPP Stream – Invite only
TechCrunch Italy, Rome

• Week 4
FailCon France

OCTOBER

• Week 1
White Bull Summit – Pathways to Exit, Sitges, Spain
DigiTalk, Bulgaria
MindTrek, Finland
Webrazzi Summit, Istanbul

• Week 2
Ennovation, Poznan
Webit, Istanbul – Recommended

• Week 3
Arctic15, Helsinki
Failcon, Paris

• Week 4
IDCEE (Investor Day CEE), Kiev
Web 2.0 Summit, SF
GigaOM Structure:Europe, Amsterdam
Wired UK 12, London
Pioneers Festival, Vienna – Recommended
Dublin Web Summit – Recommended
F.ounders, Dublin – Invite only
DLD Israel Festival, TelAviv – Recommended
Techonomy, TelAviv – Recommended

NOVEMBER

• Week 2
Noah Conference, London – Recommended
HotToWeb, Bucharest – Recommended

• Week 3
Global Entrepreneurship Week (various global events like Internet Week Europe, London)
SIME, Stockholm
Monaco Media Forum
SVC2UK, London
Slush, Helsinki

DECEMBER

• Week 1
LeWeb – Recommended

• Week 2
TechCrunch Moscow 2012

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