From 8 to 16 May, Vienna will come alive with the ViennaUP startup festival. This year’s edition will once again offer a nine-day programme full of workshops, conferences, presentations and networking opportunities. Newcomers and regular visitors alike will be in for a treat.
The startup community should stay alert. In just two weeks, ViennaUP 2025, the fifth edition of one of Europe’s largest events focused on startups and everything that goes with them, will kick off. The festival is focusing on a range of interesting topics such as social entrepreneurship, climate protection, the potential of new technologies and the creative industries.
The different events have different formats – from meetings with investors and experts to the opportunity to present your own startup and get investment and make new contacts. Highlights include “Connect Day”, which connects startup representatives directly with investors and companies, and “Impact Days”, which focus on social and environmental sustainability. The Karlsplatz square will be the festival’s headquarters again this year. In addition, participants can enjoy free coffee at participating partner cafés.
The ViennaUP Festival, which last year attracted 15,000 people from more than 90 countries, is a non-profit initiative of the Vienna Economic Agency (Wirtschaftsagentur Wien). Already in 2019, the idea of creating a platform to make the growing local startup scene visible on a global scale was conceived. At that time, the Economic Agency had already been offering support to startups for a long time in the form of consulting, training and funding, but the international events were organised independently by the individual entities. However, it soon became apparent that it would be necessary to link all the initiatives to achieve a greater impact.
The very first edition was held online due to the 2021 pandemic, but still managed to attract attention. Since then, the festival, which is ranked among the top three startup events in Europe by StartupBlink, has enjoyed global popularity. Despite its global reach, ViennaUP stays true to its local roots and showcases Vienna’s strongest industries.
source: Vienna offices
