ViennaUP 2025, Central Europe’s decentralized city-wide festival of entrepreneurship, is set to transform Vienna into a hub of innovation and collaboration from May 8 to 16, 2025.
It brings together nearly 50 events and 5 programme tracks: Venture, Collaborate, Transform, Level Up, and Connect, each tailored to cater to the interests and professional goals of tech entrepreneurs.
“ViennaUP is a very important calling card for the city” says Johannes Höhrhan, Managing Director of the Federation of Austrian Industries Vienna, an important strategic partner of the festival, which is initiated and curated by the Vienna Business Agency. “The aim is for as many of the young entrepreneurs as possible, especially from the tech startup sector, to consider expanding their activities to Vienna as a result of the impressions and encounters at the festival. This would further strengthen the very good “Viennese mix” of manufacturing industry, innovative startups and excellent research institutions.”
This article contains a curated guide to key standout sessions and networking opportunities founders can look out for within each track.
The five tracks are a part of the ViennaUP 2025 experience and help attendees navigate the programme and get the most out of the festival.Participants are encouraged to browse the programme by themselves, and the organizers created filters based on multiple criteria to stay on top of the full festival schedule.
Venture, Fueling Entrepreneurial Success
The Venture track is designed for startups aiming to secure funding and strategic partnerships. As startups are one of the most important vectors of innovation, this track covers a range of topics and sectors.
A highlight is Connect Day on May 13, an iconic matchmaking event attracting over 1,000 participants, including investors, corporates, and startups. It offers a platform for startups to pitch their ideas and engage in one-on-one meetings with potential investors. This year’s edition is centered around four key topics: Deeptech & spinoff, GreenTech, MedTech & Lifescience, and B2B & SaaS. Engaging with investors and industry leaders during Connect Day can open startups to honest feedback and potential pathways to funding.
Another flagship Venture event is Impact Days, organized by Impact Hub Vienna’s, bringing together the entire impact ecosystem from business leaders to policymakers and civil society representatives to foster systemic impact. This year’s edition will be split into three stages, exploring the intersection of people, nature and tech.
The CEE Innovation Forum is the top destination for CEE entrepreneurial, innovation, and venture communities in Vienna. It has three different stages: one for policymakers and ecosystem leaders, one for sector-focused panels, and startup-investor discussions, and one for interactive learning & networking across all stakeholders. The event is organized by The Recursive and weXelerate.
The Green 100 is a format hosted by the Climate and Energy Fund, green solutions are presented at the Green Finance Fair, and projects are connected with relevant investors in the matchmaking process.
Collaborate, Fostering Collective Innovation
Innovators often work together to amplify their impact, and the Collaborate track focuses on creating space for dialogue and brainstorming sessions. It brings forward the power of interdisciplinary cooperation to tackle complex challenges. Events within this track gather tech enthusiasts, policymakers, and industry leaders, to explore shared challenges and develop solutions together for positive change.
The Smart City SuMMit creates cross-sector collaborations for circular cities. One objective is to create momentum around this topic, and to facilitate exchange between different decision makers, as well as inform participants about possible funding pathways. The event focuses on sustainable urban development and smart city solutions. Attendees will explore how emerging technologies are being integrated into urban planning to create more livable and efficient cities.
InnoDays is a hackathon where participants turn ideas into prototypes in 48h. It’s an opportunity for talent who wants to get noticed by potential employers, as well as for business people always headhunting the next top performers. There is even a Talent Lounge as a dedicated space for networking and career opportunities, all of which takes place in a relaxed café style setting for extra comfort.
Transform, Embracing Emerging Technologies
The Transform track explores new concepts reshaping industries and societies. It features breakthrough approaches that have the potential to change traditional business models and to create new market paradigms. The key events in this track focus on topics such as sustainable urban development and smart city solutions.
Vienna waits for you – Health, AI, and the City is one such example, where practitioners from different fields come together to explore the intersection of innovation and traditional industries, with prominent keynote speakers who create momentum around this topic.
Another promising event in this track is the PeaceTech Conference 2025. Under the motto “Advancing ethical AI in a diverse world,” it brings together deeptech startups, policymakers, investors and builders. Participants can expect a day of networking around AI bias, creating fairness in technology and maintaining the balance of ethics and innovation.
Level Up, Accelerating Personal and Professional Development
The Level Up track is dedicated to accelerating personal and professional growth by unlocking skills and knowledge through workshops and interactive sessions.
Female Founders Experience is a standout event in this category, capped at 120 hand-picked attendees to make sure that participants can expect meaningful connections on top of the panels featuring successful female entrepreneurs and leaders sharing their experiences for professional growth.
The track also attracts founders who want to improve their performance, especially those who might be at the beginning of their journey, through sessions like Scaling Readiness Lab, providing a comprehensive assessment across multiple dimensions, to startuplive’25 ViennaUP, pitch competition where early stage startups meet corporate leaders and get the opportunity to participate in an acceleration program.
Connect, Building Meaningful Relationships
At its core, ViennaUP 2025 is about creating lasting connections that matter, by connecting like-minded innovators across different sectors and geographies.
The INSIDEOUT Summit by tech2impact illustrates this spirit, addressing shared challenges and co-creating impactful solutions for inner and outer innovation. The first is about unlocking tools for personal growth, and the second one is focused on tackling global challenges.
The Connect track offers multiple networking opportunities throughout the 9 days of the festival, with the ViennaUP 2025 Homebase at Karlsplatz serving as the central meeting point. Open daily from 4 PM to 10 PM, the Homebase promises a relaxed atmosphere with free wine, beer tastings, and musical performances, all to help foster spontaneous interactions among attendees.
Across the entire city, there are multiple spots to connect with stakeholders of choice. The ViennaUP 2025 Café Spaces offer informal settings in traditional Viennese cafés, where participants can socialize, engage in deeper conversations. Whenever in doubt about the best next location, participants can check out the extensive programme, which is easy to browse through to maximize the chances of attending the events that would bring the most value to every attendee.
The full programme is online at viennaup.com.
