ViennaUP’22, the largest community-driven startup festival in Central and Eastern Europe kicks off on May 27th, 2022 to create an interconnected experience for startups, investors, tech enthusiasts, creatives, and visionaries. The week-long festival, which is curated by the Vienna Business Agency, will consist of hybrid, fully-onsite, and online stand-alone events brought by ecosystem program partners.
With more than 40 program partners and a unique setup of multiple types of event formats including conferences, networking sessions, hackathons, workshops, job and talent fairs, pitchings, and “meet the experts” sessions, ViennaUP’22 has something for every founder.
Find out which are the agenda highlights, who are the most exciting speakers, and what unique networking opportunities with investors, talent, customers, and potential partners you will have as a founder.
1. Turn your idea into a business for 3 days
If you are working on an idea for an impact-driven project, or you are a startup enthusiast who wants to test his/her capabilities, have a look at the Startup Live ViennaUP’22 in the coworking space of Talent Garden Vienna. The 3-day onsite startup bootcamp will equip every founder, programmer, design enthusiast, or marketeer with the tools and practical knowledge to bring their ideas to the next level. If you are looking for team members, this is one more reason to register for the bootcamp. At the end of the program, on May 29, founders will have the chance to win prizes that would help them with the future development of their businesses.
2. Participate in the first-ever blockchain hackathon
Do you want to learn how to develop NFTs or DAOs? Then, the sustainable blockchain hackathon, organized by NEAR, the blockchain designed to get to mainstream adoption of decentralized applications, is what you are looking for. From May 27 to 29th, founders will have the chance to create groundbreaking applications on the NEAR Protocol blockchain and work with some of the best minds in the industry. The participants will work at the coworking space myhive, while the winners will receive a total of $15K in prizes.
3. Pitch in the largest pitching competition in the world
Watch the pitches of early-stage founders from Austria who are looking for an investment of up to €1M, at the Finale of Startup World Cup Austria on May 30th. You will have the opportunity to attend the largest pitching competition in the world and see how other Austrian startups from Digital Health and BioTech, Social and Climate Impact, Smart City and FinTech, and InsurTech verticals compete for a spot at the world finals in Silicon Valley.
4. Looking for a female cofounder?
On May 30th, from 6 PM to 9 PM, WeDo5, the impact initiative that supports female-led startups, will organize a different kind of pitching – one that is aimed to help founders find team members, co-workers, and co-founders. Both founders who want to pitch and attract talent and guests who are exploring work opportunities at startups are welcome to register for free. Before the Find Your Female Cofounder pitching event, there will be a training session to prepare the founders.
Vienna is a great place for impact tech startups to start their businesses and grow them here for the reason that it is quite an international city that prioritizes urban sustainability. Therefore greentech thrives here. And there is a lot of funding for early-stage startups.
Sasha Lippam
founder of tech2impact
5. Take part in the ultimate matchmaking event
Connect Day 2022 is the main matchmaking event of ViennaUP’22 that aims to connect startups, corporates, SMEs, and investors. Unlike the typical buyer meets seller event, the all-day hybrid Connect 2022 is all about innovation. It will help corporations to find innovative startup products and services, and allow startups to meet and establish connections with angel investors and VCs. In addition, all of the participants will be able to book B2B meetings in advance and attend corporate reverse pitches, and side-event workshops and masterclasses.
We chose Vienna as our European headquarters because of its quality of life, its venture, its culture, its startups, and its proximity to other countries. It just makes sense to have a progressive company from San Francisco pick up roots here.
Trevor Hubbard
CEO of Butchershop
6. Find solutions for existing technological questions
The INiTS START:IP Matching Day, organized by Vienna’s High Tech Incubator, will allow deep tech founders, innovation managers, and investors to find cutting-edge technologies from European research, and understand how to turn them into profitable products or services. The event will bring together companies in search of innovation, founders looking for a startup idea, investors looking for promising opportunities, and researchers looking for possible applications. Founders will be able to pitch their tech solutions and receive individual feedback from scientists.
We started the company first in Hong Kong and then we came back to Vienna to develop it. We were impressed by the public grant funding landscape which was very beneficial for starting a green startup business.
Katharina Unger
Founder of Livin Farms
7. Meet the talent that you are looking for
I see Vienna as a bridge between Eastern and Western Europe. I am happy to see more and more people moving to Vienna to start their businesses here.
Eva Arh
venture capital investor at 3VC
Are you recruiting, or looking for branding and exposure? The Tech Jobs Vienna’22 is the right event to meet thousands of talents with great skills and hire the most motivated future employees and interns. As a startup founder, you will be able to register as an exhibitor to get access to a large number of candidates in a one-stop environment, as well as to get more attention and awareness about your company.
I am very connected to Vienna. I came here three years ago with the Vienna Welcome Startup Package which helped us meet with all the people and talent of the local startup world and I was thrilled by how lively it was.
Luka Mohoric
CEO of Animacel
