The second half of 2026 is packed. Between July and December, there are more than 30 confirmed events worth your time across Europe, the US, and the Middle East, covering everything from AI infrastructure to retail tech, cybersecurity, developer tools, and the full founder-investor circuit.
This is not a list of every conference. It’s a selection built around a single filter: does this event put you in a room with people who can move your company forward? Use it as a planning tool, not a bucket list. A mediocre event on the right date still costs you more than three days OOO.
GITEX AI Europe 2026
📍 Berlin, Germany | 🗓 30 Jun–1 Jul 2026
GITEX AI Europe returns to Messe Berlin for its second edition, bringing together 25,000+ tech and business leaders, 1,400+ global enterprises and startups, and 600+ investors from over 100 countries. The event runs four co-located programs: AI Everything Europe for real-world AI applications, North Star Europe for startups with a €50,000 equity-free pitch prize, GISEC Europe for cybersecurity, and GITEX Quantum Expo for quantum commercialisation. The first edition in 2025 drew 21,650 attendees and 755 startups.
gitexeurope.com
RAISE Summit 2026
📍 Paris, France | 🗓 8–9 Jul 2026
RAISE Summit 2026 brings together 9,000+ AI leaders, founders, investors and policymakers at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris, with 350 speakers, enterprise AI discussions, a startup competition with a €10M+ prize pool, and an AI hackathon drawing 7,000 developers. The 2026 edition adds an invitation-only CxO Summit for Fortune 1000 executives, with closed-door sessions featuring executives from Mercedes, AXA, and Capgemini. Speaker lineup includes Yann LeCun, Mark Cuban, and representatives from OpenAI, Anthropic, and NVIDIA.
raisesummit.com
Love Tomorrow Summit 2026
📍 Boom, Belgium | 🗓 23 Jul 2026
The fifth edition of Love Tomorrow Summit takes place on 23 July 2026 at De Schorre in Boom, Belgium, the same site as Tomorrowland, on the Thursday between its two festival weekends. The 2026 theme is the future of intelligence: exploring how AI, leadership, and human resilience interact as technological systems accelerate. The Summit brings together 7,000+ attendees across six programming pillars: Impact Entrepreneurship, Natural Intelligence, Science & Technology, Socio-Economic Perspectives, Health & Mindfulness, and Entertainment. There is no equivalent format anywhere on the calendar: a serious impact investing roundtable that ends with a festival.
lovetomorrow.com
LEAP 2026
📍 Riyadh, Saudi Arabia | 🗓 31 Aug–3 Sep 2026
LEAP 2026 takes place at the Riyadh Exhibition and Convention Center in Malham, bringing together global technology leaders, startups, investors, entrepreneurs, and government organizations from around the world. The 2025 edition hosted 201,000 visitors, 1,800+ exhibitors, and 1,900+ investors with a combined AUM exceeding $22 trillion. LEAP has grown into one of the few places outside Silicon Valley and Europe where you access truly deep pools of sovereign and institutional capital. Not a startup networking event in the typical sense. Worth the trip if MENA or Gulf markets are on your roadmap.
onegiantleap.com
TechBBQ 2026
📍 Copenhagen, Denmark | 🗓 26–27 Aug 2026
TechBBQ 2026 takes place at the Bella Center Copenhagen on August 26–27, bringing together 10,000+ founders, investors, and innovators from across Europe and beyond. Forbes named TechBBQ one of the hottest startup events in Europe for 2026. The event features dedicated matchmaking, pitch competitions, and a strong life sciences program, particularly valuable given Denmark’s outsized position in European biotech and pharma. The format is known for its deliberately warm, hygge-infused atmosphere: the kind of event where meaningful conversations actually happen rather than badge-scan exchanges. Side events run across Copenhagen throughout the week.
techbbq.dk
IFA Berlin 2026
📍 Berlin, Germany | 🗓 4–8 Sep 2026
IFA 2026 takes place at Messe Berlin from 4 to 8 September. In its 102nd year, one of the most established consumer electronics and home appliances trade shows globally draws 215,000+ visitors from 140 countries and 1,800+ exhibitors. IFA Next is the dedicated startup zone connecting early-stage companies with investors, global retailers, and tech media. For hardware founders, consumer tech builders, and anyone touching smart home, AI devices, or connected mobility, this is a commercial platform rather than a networking conference. The distinction matters: you come here to sell and to be discovered, not to collect business cards.
ifa-berlin.com
Infobip Shift 2026
📍 Zadar, Croatia | 🗓 13–15 Sep 2026
Infobip Shift 2026 takes place September 13–15 in Zadar, bringing together developers and engineers from around the world. The 2026 edition welcomes confirmed speakers from NVIDIA and Apple, with central themes covering cutting-edge technology platforms, career growth in tech, and practical AI tools. The 2025 edition gathered 5,500 attendees from 40 countries. The format rewards founders building technical products who need direct access to engineering talent and developer community: the conference where a junior developer can have a casual coffee with a Netflix senior engineer. Relaxed Mediterranean setting, serious technical content.
shift.infobip.com
Big Data & AI Paris 2026
📍 Paris, France | 🗓 15–16 Sep 2026
Big Data & AI Paris 2026 takes place 15–16 September at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles, held under the High Patronage of the President of the French Republic. The event describes itself as the meeting place for IT and data decision-makers industrialising AI. The 2026 Advisory Board includes Chief Data & AI Officers from AXA France, Suez, and L’Oréal, alongside the CEO of Hub France IA. The program covers enterprise AI deployment, data infrastructure, and an Advanced Computing Village focused on quantum and HPC. Practical, enterprise-first, and with direct access to the senior buyer community in French tech: if you’re selling data or AI solutions into large organizations, the room here is more relevant than most.
bigdataparis.com
NRF 2026: Retail’s Big Show Europe
📍 Paris, France | 🗓 15–17 Sep 2026
NRF 2026: Retail’s Big Show Europe returns to Paris Expo Porte de Versailles with more than 12,000 attendees from over 60 countries, 4,200 brands, 525 exhibitors, and 200 speakers across three days. The event includes a Startup Hub spotlighting the newest retail tech companies and a House of Innovation Pavilion curating 15 standout startups. If you’re building in retail tech, supply chain, e-commerce, or the future of in-store experience, this is the room with the actual buyers, not just the observers. The event operates under the theme “The Next Now.”
nrfbigshoweurope.com
FDDay 2026
📍 Paris, France | 🗓 16 Sep 2026
France Digitale’s annual gathering takes place in Paris for its 14th edition. Over 4,500 founders, investors and innovation leaders come together for a full day to discuss the latest trends, close deals, raise funds, and network in a village-like venue in the heart of the French capital. FDDay is built around the founding community, not the press, not the corporates. The 2026 edition brings back the CES Tech Trends track, its first stop on the road to CES 2027. If you’re raising in France or targeting French enterprise customers, your tribe is here and the conversations are unusually candid.
fdday.eu
Scaleup Fest 2026
📍 Budapest, Hungary | 🗓 16–17 Sep 2026
Scaleup Fest is the go-to gathering for ambitious founders, fast-growing SMEs, and rising scaleups from Central and Eastern Europe. The 2025 edition brought together 300+ startups and scaleups alongside 150+ investors including Speedinvest, OTB Ventures, 3VC, and PortfoLion. The format runs across 3 stages with 8+ workshops and 50+ speakers, combining practical growth content with a curated investor networking program.
thescaleupfest.com
Turing Fest 2026
📍 Edinburgh, Scotland | 🗓 22–23 Sep 2026
Turing Fest 2026 is a focused summit for early-stage founders and investors, curated around connection rather than pitches. The event deliberately concentrates founders and investors who are actively building and backing companies at the same stage. Limited to 100 investors, maintaining a 2–3:1 founder-to-investor ratio, with Day 2 dedicated entirely to curated 1:1 meetings and a VIP dinner at Edinburgh Castle. All founder applications are reviewed by the team within 48 hours. Small, intentional, unusually efficient.
turingfest.com
DMEXCO 2026
📍 Cologne, Germany | 🗓 23–24 Sep 2026
DMEXCO 2026 takes place at Koelnmesse on September 23 and 24, bringing together an estimated 40,000 professional visitors, 700+ exhibiting companies, and approximately 1,000 speakers across 17 themed stages. The event is structured around five worlds: Agencies, Commerce, Media, Tech, and Future. The go-to event for martech, adtech, e-commerce, and digital media founders who want direct access to European agency decision-makers, brand CMOs, and retail buyers. The 2026 theme is “Prompting the Future.”
dmexco.com
Bits & Pretzels 2026
📍 Munich, Germany | 🗓 28–30 Sep 2026
Bits & Pretzels hosts 7,500 founders, investors, and industry leaders for three days of learning and doing business at Oktoberfest. The 2026 edition brings together 1,500+ VCs, 300+ limited partners, and 600+ top executives. Across its history, the event has facilitated over €4.2 billion in capital raised and 21,000 founder-investor meetings in 2023 alone. Days 1 and 2 run at the ICM in Munich. Day 3 moves into a real Oktoberfest tent where every table is a pre-booked meeting of 8–10 attendees. The 2026 theme is “Human After All.”
bitsandpretzels.com
Nova Future Summit 2026
📍 Napa, California, USA | 🗓 28–30 Sep 2026
Nova Future Summit takes place September 28–30 at the Meritage Resort & Spa in Napa. Co-created by the GSMA and Wing, it is an invite-only gathering for 500 tech and telecom leaders with no press access. The format is built around substantive discussion: two days of Keynote Salons, Boardroom sessions, and structured networking with no exposition and no pitching stages. A delegate pass costs $11,000 and includes two nights’ accommodation. If you’re in connectivity, telco infrastructure, or anything touching the network layer at enterprise scale, this is where the principals convene.
novasummit.com
Innovation Week AI 2026
📍 Prague, Czech Republic | 🗓 1–3 Oct 2026
Innovation Week 2026 is the largest Czech innovation conference with 11 years of history, taking place 1–3 October in Prague at the ČSOB Campus. Three days, four stages, more than 400 speakers, and an estimated 15,000 participants covering AI, green tech, health and biotech, fintech, and smart cities. The conference brings together startups, investors, corporate partners, and innovators from the Czech Republic and beyond.
innovationweek.ai
Sifted Summit 2026
📍 London, United Kingdom | 🗓 30 Sep–1 Oct 2026
Sifted Summit is where scaleup founders, operators, and investors come together for honest conversations about what it really takes to scale. The 2026 edition moves to a new venue in Shoreditch, London, and pivots away from panels towards smaller, more focused and interactive formats built for candid discussion and meaningful connection between peers at the same stage. The Financial Times-backed positioning gives this event unusual credibility with European enterprise buyers and later-stage investors.
summit.sifted.eu
One to One IA x Expérience Client 2026
📍 Biarritz, France | 🗓 6–8 Oct 2026
One to One IA x Expérience Client takes place 6–8 October 2026 in Biarritz. A Comexposium One to One format built entirely around pre-scheduled meetings between senior decision-makers and solution providers: no cold approaches, no random floor encounters. A dedicated Startup Village gives early-stage companies direct access to CX and marketing buyers. The right event if you’re selling into retail, loyalty, e-commerce, or CRM and want conversations with people who control budgets.
1to1-experience-client.com
Les Assises de la Cybersécurité 2026
📍 Monaco | 🗓 7–10 Oct 2026
Les Assises de la cybersécurité is the essential annual gathering of the cyber community, held in Monaco for more than 20 years. Four days using the Comexposium One to One format: curated meetings between CISOs, IT security decision-makers, and solution providers, with an editorial program built by an independent committee. One of the longest-running cybersecurity events in the French-speaking world. If you’re building in security and want direct access to enterprise buyers rather than a general tech audience, the conversation quality here is a level above most sector events.
lesassisesdelacybersecurite.com
SF Tech Week 2026
📍 San Francisco, USA | 🗓 5–11 Oct 2026
SF Tech Week runs October 5–11, 2026, presented by a16z. Rather than being confined to a single venue, it is an ecosystem of hundreds of independently hosted events across San Francisco: pitch nights, workshops, hackathons, founder dinners, investor panels, and themed meetups. Not a conference. A city-wide week you build your own program from. Its value is entirely determined by your preparation and who you reach out to before you land.
tech-week.com
Wave by Vento 2026
📍 Turin, Italy | 🗓 7–9 Oct 2026
Wave 2026 is one of Europe’s most influential tech conferences, taking place at OGR Torino, October 7–9. Confirmed speakers include Dario Amodei (Anthropic), Jony Ive, and John Elkann. The 2025 edition featured Jeff Bezos and Ursula von der Leyen and brought over 15,000 founders, investors, and practitioners to Turin. Rebranded from Italian Tech Week by Vento, Italy’s most active early-stage fund, the new format is visibly more global in ambition and program depth. The OGR Torino venue, a restored 19th-century industrial complex, is itself worth the visit.
wavebyvento.com
World Summit AI 2026
📍 Amsterdam, Netherlands | 🗓 7–8 Oct 2026
World Summit AI returns to Amsterdam for its 10th anniversary at the Taets Art & Event Park. The event gathers the global AI ecosystem: enterprise leaders, big tech, startups, investors, researchers, policymakers, and AI ethics experts, with 10,000+ attendees, 300+ speakers across 10 tracks, and 100+ exhibitors. Past speakers include Yann LeCun, Yoshua Bengio, and Werner Vogels. Part of World AI Week (5–9 October), which draws over 15,000 people to Amsterdam across 100+ affiliated events. Ten years in, this has the institutional depth the newer AI conferences are still building towards.
worldsummit.ai
How to Web Conference 2026
📍 Bucharest, Romania | 🗓 7–9 Oct 2026
More than 3,000 entrepreneurs, investors, and technology professionals from over 40 countries are expected at How to Web 2026, with confirmed speakers from OpenAI, Meta, Google, and Stripe, alongside investors from Atomico and Eurazeo. The 2026 theme: “What will you build when you can build anything?” The event opens October 6 with satellite events including an Investors Summit, with the main conference running October 7–8 at Face Convention Center. 50+ side events run throughout the week.
howtoweb.co
TechCrunch Disrupt 2026
📍 San Francisco, USA | 🗓 13–15 Oct 2026
TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 takes place at Moscone West in San Francisco, October 13–15. The event draws 10,000+ founders, operators, VCs, and tech leaders, with 250+ speakers and 300+ exhibiting startups. The Startup Battlefield pitch competition offers the $100,000 Disrupt Cup and remains one of the most visible early-stage pitch competitions in American tech media. The 2026 edition is structured around three AI tracks: AI in the real world, smart systems, and AI infrastructure. If US press coverage and top-tier VC attention are core to your fundraising strategy, this is a strong option.
techcrunch.com/events/techcrunch-disrupt
Shift AI Europe 2026
📍 Barcelona, Spain | 🗓 13–14 Oct 2026
Shift AI Europe takes place in Barcelona on 13–14 October 2026, bringing together SaaS founders navigating the shift to AI, AI-native startup founders building new software categories, and investors deploying capital into AI software. Born from the retirement of the SaaStock brand, it’s built on a direct thesis: the per-seat model is structurally finished and founders need a new playbook. 8,000 curated 1:1 meetings are pre-scheduled before you arrive; every meeting has context, none are cold. It’s the first edition. Worth watching closely to see whether it builds the community SaaStock once had.
europe.shiftai.events
Cosmetic 360 2026
📍 Paris, France | 🗓 14–15 Oct 2026
Cosmetic 360 is the international innovation trade show for the cosmetics and perfumery industry, organized by Cosmetic Valley and held each October at the Carrousel du Louvre. It brings together international decision-makers around the latest technological advances, emerging trends, and innovations across the entire sector. Niche by design, global by reach.
cosmetic-360.com
UNLEASH World 2026
📍 Paris, France | 🗓 20–22 Oct 2026
UNLEASH World 2026 takes place October 20–22 at the Paris Convention Centre. One of the most influential HR and workforce technology events globally, the main conference runs across 7 stages on Days 2 and 3 with an exhibition floor, product discovery, and startup showcases. Day 1 is reserved for senior HR leaders: curated Summits & Salons at the Shangri-La Paris and hosted Expeditions inside leading employers across the city. Over 90% of the Fortune 500 has attended UNLEASH.
unleash.ai/events/unleash-paris
Oslo Innovation Week 2026
📍 Oslo, Norway | 🗓 19–23 Oct 2026
Oslo Innovation Week connects Oslo’s startup and innovation ecosystem to the world, 19–23 October 2026. Oslo’s 3,000 startups and scaleups span renewable energy, health tech, the circular economy, and ocean tech. Five days across the city, umbrella format, hundreds of side events organized by incubators, investors, and corporates. Strong for climate tech, ocean tech, and energy founders targeting Nordic institutional capital, and for anyone who wants to understand what serious sustainability investment looks like at the government-backed level rather than the conference-panel level.
oiw.no
Valencia Digital Summit 2026
📍 Valencia, Spain | 🗓 21–22 Oct 2026
VDS celebrates its ninth edition at the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia on October 21–22, welcoming over 12,000 attendees from more than 120 countries. The event connects 3,000 startups and scaleups with more than 1,500 corporates and hosts 800+ global investors managing over €300 billion in assets. The 2025 edition generated €26 million in economic impact on Valencia, a 29% increase on the prior year, with attending startups projecting €560 million in follow-on financing from connections made at the event. VDS has also built one of the more credible Europe–Latin America bridges in the circuit. The 2026 theme is “Origin of What’s Next.”
vds.tech
Web Summit 2026
📍 Lisbon, Portugal | 🗓 9–12 Nov 2026
Web Summit Lisbon 2026 is confirmed for November 9–12 at the Altice Arena and FIL exhibition centre in Parque das Nações. November 9 is a pre-conference day for mentorship, startup workshops, and early networking. The event draws 70,000+ attendees from 160+ countries across 20+ content stages spanning AI, fintech, healthtech, climate tech, and the creator economy. Scale and noise in equal measure. Go with a clear agenda or you’ll spend four days running between halls. The startup exhibition and PITCH competition remain the best reasons for early-stage founders to make the trip, along with Night Summit, the after-hours program across Lisbon’s bars and restaurants where many of the real conversations happen.
websummit.com
Slush 2026
📍 Helsinki, Finland | 🗓 18–19 Nov 2026
Slush 2026 takes place November 18–19 at the Helsinki Expo and Convention Center, Messukeskus. November 17 is an official Day 0 featuring Investor Day and a dedicated founders program. The event gathers 12,000 founders, investors, and media, with over $4 trillion in assets under management represented by attending investors and more than 25,000 meetings expected over the two days. Slush is a not-for-profit run by students and graduates with 1,700 volunteers. Startup tickets from €395, investor passes from €1,095. One of the best events in Europe for curated founder-investor meetings. Book your 1:1s before you land in Helsinki.
slush.org
GITEX Global 2026
📍 Dubai, UAE | 🗓 7–11 Dec 2026
GITEX Global 2026 marks a fresh chapter as it relocates to the Dubai Exhibition Centre at Expo City Dubai, a $2.7 billion venue expansion. GITEX and Expand North Star come together in one location for the first time, creating a single integrated platform spanning the full global innovation ecosystem. The 2026 edition opens December 7 with the new GITEX Scale Summit, a high-level dialogue on AI economies and global tech policy, followed by four days of exhibition from December 8–11. Over 200,000 attendees from 180+ countries, 6,800 exhibiting companies, and 400+ government entities are expected.
gitex.com
Dates confirmed from official event websites as of June 2026. Some events may update their programs, so verify directly with organizers before booking travel. Have an event that should be on this list? Let us know.