For two days in Bucharest, the energy of Eastern Europe’s tech ecosystem was impossible to ignore. Over 3,000 founders, investors, operators, and global tech leaders gathered at How to Web Conference 2025 to exchange ideas, create the premises for new partnerships, and map the next stage of growth for the region.
Across four dedicated stages: Build & Grow, Focus, Startup, and Broadcast, 150+ international speakers from OpenAI, Amazon, Google, IBM, Booking.com, Alibaba Cloud, Canva, and top investment funds like Northzone, Creandum, Seedcamp, and 20VC joined the conversation.
But beyond the stages and the numbers, this year’s How to Web was about real interaction, founders meeting investors face-to-face, regional voices joining global ones, and ideas turning into tangible opportunities.
A Region in Motion: Conversations that Shape the Future
In one of the most anticipated panels, Alice Guo, Lead for Early Stage Startups EMEA at OpenAI, opened the conference with a session titled “AI That Works”, highlighting how artificial intelligence is reshaping business models and enabling a new wave of innovation.
Throughout the event, product leaders, growth mentors, and data innovators, from Martin Eriksson (Mind the Product) to Zoltan Vardy (The Launch Code) and Steen Rasmussen (IIH Nordic), shared practical insights into scaling teams, navigating fundraising cycles, and building resilient organizations.
“The way the How to Web conference has developed over the years has gone beyond the role of a simple event. We all contribute—organizers, participants, partners—to a phenomenon that keeps this region alive and brings together all the representatives capable of building a more optimistic future through technology. This year, this role has been further strengthened by the presence of regional startup delegations, the launch of reports during the conference, events dedicated to academia, politics, and journalism, and leading global technology companies, which were present both on stage and in the audience,” said Monica Zara, Head of Conference at How to Web.
That collaborative spirit was felt in every corner of the event from investor breakfasts to satellite programs dedicated to academia, journalism, and policy-making.
Capital Meets Innovation
With 2,000+ facilitated meetings and 200+ international investors present, How to Web Conference reinforced its position as the meeting point between global capital and Eastern European innovation.
Investors who have backed success stories like UiPath, Revolut, Spotify, Bolt, and ElevenLabs joined founders to explore new opportunities. Over 550 early-stage startups attended, taking part in bootcamps, mentoring sessions, and the Spotlight competition, which once again proved to be a launch pad for the next wave of promising teams.
The Spotlight 2025 winner, LynxCraft, a Slovenian platform automating design and supply chains in housing construction, walked away with a €180,000 investment from GapMinder Ventures and V7 Capital, plus over €125,000 in cloud and service credits.
Beyond the Main Stage
The experience extended far beyond keynotes. Satellite events such as Venture in Eastern Europe 2025, which gathered over 200 investors, the Bridging CEE: An Investor Networking Lunch in partnership with Hellen’s Rock Capital, Warsaw Equity Group, and Soulmates Ventures, or the Founders Networking Event created space for deeper dialogue on the region’s path forward.
Dedicated sessions like Bytes & Bills (on public policy and entrepreneurship), Leap of Tech (on the shift from outsourcing to product innovation), and Tomorrow’s Threats Today Europe’s Cybersecurity Agenda added substance to the agenda, bridging technology, governance, and strategy.
At the same time, delegations of startups from Moldova, Serbia, and Slovenia expanded the regional scope of the event, reaffirming How to Web’s mission to connect emerging ecosystems under one roof.
Insight for the Ecosystem
In line with its role as a catalyst for ecosystem growth, the conference also hosted the launch of “The State of Romanian-born Early Stage Startups”, a new report mapping opportunities and challenges for local founders in the broader European landscape.
With insights like these, How to Web Conference continues to strengthen its position as the anchor event of Eastern Europe’s innovation calendar, a place where investors discover new bets, founders test their ideas against global standards, and everyone leaves with a clearer sense of direction. This edition proved once again that Eastern Europe’s innovation story is all about the right connections at the right time.
