Austria's startup scene is centred on Vienna, which blends a high quality of life with growing access to capital and talent. The city serves as a gateway between Western and Central Europe, making it attractive for founders targeting DACH and CEE markets. Key sectors include fintech, proptech, and sustainability, supported by government grants and an expanding accelerator landscape. The directory currently lists 94 organisations across 11 cities.
94 entries.
Investor-focused conference in Vienna connecting LPs, GPs, and family offices across the DACH private equity and venture capital markets. Features structured networking, fund manager presentations, and LP-GP matchmaking sessions. Valuable for startups seeking growth equity and founders looking to understand the Central European investor landscape.
Founded in 2000, 3TS Capital Partners is a Vienna-based VC and growth equity firm investing EUR 5-20M at Series B and beyond in technology, media, and telecom companies across Central and Eastern Europe. The firm manages over EUR 500M and has completed 70+ investments with 30+ exits. Notable portfolio companies include SALESmanago (acquired by Bain Capital), Evrotrust, and Emarsys (acquired by SAP). 3TS focuses on profitable, scaling B2B software and digital media businesses in the DACH and CEE regions.
Founded in 2017 as Capital300 and rebranded to 3VC, this Vienna-based firm invests EUR 1-10M at Series A in European tech challengers originating from DACH and CEE. The firm manages over EUR 250M and targets enterprise software, developer tools, and consumer internet companies with strong product-market fit. Portfolio includes GoStudent (edtech unicorn), Prewave (supply chain AI), and Storyblok (headless CMS). 3VC provides deep operational support through its network of 100+ tech executives across Europe.
Vienna's multi-stage innovation festival organized by ProSiebenSat.1 PULS 4, bringing 10,000+ attendees across media, tech, sustainability, and politics tracks. Features a startup expo, pitch competition, and keynotes from European tech leaders. Free to EUR 99.
Founded 2003. Lower Austria's high-tech incubator providing 18-24 months of pre-seed funding, intensive coaching, and training sessions to build regional deep-tech companies. Alumni examples include Greenwood Power and Cyan Cycle. Support: grants, business coaching, advisor network. Scope: Regional (Lower Austria).
Adverity is a marketing data and analytics platform headquartered in Vienna, founded in 2015. It helps marketing, sales and e-commerce teams integrate, clean and manage data from many sources, then analyse it to generate insights. Its offering splits into Adverity Data, for data collection, integration and quality management, and Adverity Intelligence, for analytics and AI-powered, conversational capabilities, connecting to a large number of marketing and advertising data sources. The company holds ISO/IEC 27001 and SOC 2 Type 2 certifications and is backed by investors including SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Sapphire Ventures.
Created 2016 by Raiffeisen Ware Austria and BayWa. Agritech accelerator offering mentoring, pilot opportunities on farms, industry networking, and hackathons; pilots can lead to strategic cooperation or investment with BayWa/RWA. Scope: International (Europe).
Austria's largest non-university research institution, focused on applied research in energy, mobility, health, digital safety and security and innovation systems. It organizes Technology Talks Austria, a flagship innovation conference convening leaders from politics, industry and academia on technological sovereignty and resilience.
Italian legal scholar and Jean Monnet Professor of European Union Law at HEC Paris, founder of the civic advocacy organization The Good Lobby, focused on citizen participation and European democracy. He is an announced speaker at the 2026 European Forum Alpbach.
Alexander Wrabetz is Vienna's Commissioner for AI in Media and the former long-serving Director General of ORF, Austria's public broadcasting corporation. He is a prominent figure in Austrian and European media policy, having led ORF through major digital transformation phases over multiple terms. At the 4GAMECHANGERS AI-Day 2026, he argued for cross-sector cooperation among public and private broadcasters to address economic pressures from advertising losses and accelerate AI adoption.
Anyline is a Vienna-based computer vision company founded in 2013 that provides mobile OCR and scanning SDK technology, enabling smartphones and tablets to read text, barcodes, IDs, license plates, and meter readings using the device camera. The company serves enterprise clients in energy, logistics, government, and automotive, with deployments in over 100 countries. Anyline has raised approximately $20 million and partners with organizations like the US Department of Homeland Security. It is a standout Austrian deep-tech company that turned on-device AI scanning into a scalable B2B platform.
Apex Ventures is a Vienna-based seed-stage venture capital firm launched in 2017 by Andreas Schwarzenbrunner, Wolfgang Berner, and Ulrich Gall, focused on deep tech, AI, medical devices, and digital health. The firm manages over EUR 50M and invests EUR 250K-1.5M in science-driven teams with defensible intellectual property, often emerging from leading European research institutions. Apex has backed companies including Prewave, Ribbonfish, and contextflow, and provides hands-on support in technology commercialization and clinical market access.
Five-day festival on art, technology and society in downtown Linz under the theme 'Future Begins — Negotiating Humanity'. Combines exhibitions, conferences, performances, workshops and tours across three venue clusters: OK Quarter, Med Campus and Danube Triangle.
One-day Vienna summit bringing together fintech founders, banks, corporates, regulators, and investors. Held with Vienna Blockchain Week and NEOB.ai. Covers digital finance, tokenization, AI, payments, regulation, and enterprise adoption with 500+ attendees and 30+ speakers.
Austria's leading startup community organization, active since 2013, hosting afterwork meetups, regional events, and the annual Austrian Startup Report. AustrianStartups connects over 5,000 entrepreneurs, investors, and ecosystem players across Vienna, Graz, and Linz, advocating for better startup policy and strengthening the national startup landscape.
Annual meeting point of the Austrian startup ecosystem at Ottakringer Brauerei in Vienna. Brings founders, investors and industry leaders together for talks, panels and high-value networking under the 2026 motto 'No risk, no fun(ds)'.
aws First is a pre-startup incubation programme run by Austria Wirtschaftsservice (aws), the promotional bank of the Austrian federal government. It supports aspiring founders and very early-stage teams with grants, coaching and structured guidance to develop their business ideas into viable startups, sitting at the earliest end of Austria's public startup-support pipeline.
The aws Gruenderfonds is an Austrian venture capital fund managed within Austria Wirtschaftsservice (aws), the promotional bank of the Austrian federal government. It provides equity and equity-like financing to young, high-growth Austrian startups, typically at seed and early stages, to help them scale and attract follow-on private investment.
Bernhard Albrecht is Co-CEO of ProSiebenSat.1 PULS 4, Austria's leading commercial broadcaster and digital entertainment group. He drives the company's AI strategy and digital transformation agenda across its portfolio of TV and digital channels. At the 4GAMECHANGERS AI-Day 2026, he emphasized moving from AI buzzwords toward genuine practical implementations in media production and marketing.
Bitmovin is a video-streaming developer-infrastructure company that provides cloud-based tools for encoding, playing and analysing video, including a VOD encoder, a live encoder, a multi-device player and streaming quality-of-experience analytics. It originated from MPEG-DASH adaptive-streaming research at the University of Klagenfurt, Austria, and its founders were among the co-creators of the MPEG-DASH standard. Serving media and enterprise customers, the company operates dual headquarters in Klagenfurt and San Francisco and has raised venture funding including from Highland Europe, Atomico and Dawn Capital.
Bitpanda is one of Austria's most visible fintech scale-ups and has evolved from a consumer crypto trading app into a broader digital wealth platform. The product now combines access to cryptocurrencies, precious metals, ETFs, and other investment products in a single interface aimed at making investing feel simple for mainstream European users. A major part of Bitpanda's strategic value is not just consumer distribution, but the compliance and infrastructure layer it has built around regulated digital investing. That regulatory posture helped the company move from a retail app narrative toward financial infrastructure, including B2B services that let banks and fintechs offer investing products through Bitpanda's rails. In the European ecosystem, Bitpanda represents the maturation of fintech and digital-asset infrastructure on the continent: not only speculation-led growth, but operational depth around licensing, custody, user onboarding, and cross-border product rollout. Its presence also expands the directory's coverage of companies that sit between retail experience and regulated financial plumbing. That makes Bitpanda a strong reference point for founders and investors tracking how European fintech platforms transition from category breakout into foundational market infrastructure.
Colombian legal scholar and professor at NYU School of Law, chair of the Earth Rights Research and Action program, working on human rights, environmental law and the rights of nature. He is an announced speaker at the 2026 TEDAI Vienna conference on AI and environmental law.
British-Canadian author, journalist and digital-rights activist, a special advisor to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and prolific commentator on technology, platforms and the open internet. He is an announced speaker at the 2026 TEDAI Vienna conference.
Coworking Linz is a city-centre shared workspace located at Stifterstraße 22, 4020 Linz, a short walk from both Linz Cathedral and the Landstraße retail district and approximately ten minutes on foot from the main railway station. The space occupies an accessible, wheelchair-friendly ground-floor unit and targets startups and small companies seeking a collaborative daily environment without long-term office leases. The offering centres on large communal tables with abundant desk space, standing desks, high-speed WiFi, printing, and fair-use coffee — a deliberately lean set-up that keeps the focus on focused work and peer interaction rather than amenity overload. Members also gain access to a kitchen, outdoor terrace, personal lockers, lounge areas, and 24-hour entry. The space markets itself specifically to early-stage founders and distributed teams needing a professional address and a local professional community in central Linz. Its compact footprint and convenient location make it a practical entry point into Linz's startup scene for solo founders or small remote teams relocating to Upper Austria.
A summit at the intersection of culture, technology, and business, gathering founders, investors, and cultural institutions in Vienna. Useful for founders building at the culture-tech edge.
Daxbau is a creative-professional coworking space at Peuerbachstraße 7, 4020 Linz, designed specifically for independent creatives, freelancers, and small startups working across graphic design, illustration, photography, video production, software development, copywriting, translation, and journalism. The space combines a practical coworking floor — ergonomic desks, 100 Mbit WiFi, shared printers, personal lockers, and a kitchen — with a community ethos that values social exchange and peer accountability. Members can join on a full-time or part-time basis, with optional key access for off-hours entry, making it suitable for both regular desk workers and occasional drop-ins. The Peuerbachstraße address sits in a residential-commercial district a few tram stops from the city centre, giving it a quieter atmosphere than central business addresses. Amenities include a lounge, bike parking, car parking, and an adjoining restaurant. Daxbau's explicit vertical focus on creative professionals distinguishes it from tech-first coworking venues elsewhere in Linz, making it the natural home for designers, media producers, and content studios who want to work alongside peers in the same craft rather than in a generic open-plan environment.
Easelink develops Matrix Charging, an automated hands-free EV charging system that connects vehicles to ground charging pads without manual cable handling. It positions against charging ecosystem players such as IONITY, EV Connect, and ChargePoint.
Elevator Ventures is the corporate venture capital unit of Raiffeisen Bank International, co-backed by Raiffeisen-Holding Niederösterreich-Wien and Raiffeisen-Landesbank Steiermark, managing funds of more than €100 million. The firm targets Series A and B fintech and beyond-banking companies, with a focus on the DACH and CEE regions, and has invested over €60 million in 21 companies, achieving seven exits. It originated from Elevator Lab, an RBI accelerator launched in 2017 to scout startup partners globally.
eQventure is an Austrian venture capital firm founded in 2014 and headquartered in Graz, with a second office in Vienna. It specializes in early-stage and growth investments in deep technology, industrial tech, digital health, and consumer technology companies, primarily in Austria. Behind the firm are experienced entrepreneurs who contribute hands-on operational support and access to a global network spanning Austria, Germany, the UK, Israel, the US, and China.
Vienna-based non-profit association and foundation that has organized the European Forum Alpbach since 1945, an annual interdisciplinary gathering in Tyrol bringing thousands of participants from politics, business, science, culture and a large scholarship-funded young cohort together for debate on Europe's future.
The 81st edition of Austria's flagship interdisciplinary forum, themed around Europe's future, gathering thousands of participants from dozens of countries. It convenes decision-makers from politics, business, science and culture alongside scholarship-funded young people across Academy Days, Euregio Days and Conference Days. It is a high-level venue for founders seeking European policy, investment and innovation networking.
faaya collective is an art-commerce platform that sells fine-art prints from emerging artists and produces on-demand prints locally in Graz, positioned as a sustainability-focused alternative to larger print marketplaces.
Factory300 is Linz's flagship startup coworking venue, launched in summer 2017 inside Haus CASABLANCA at Peter-Behrens-Platz 10 within the historic Tabakfabrik complex. The space spans 3,200 square metres and hosts roughly 400 members representing more than 180 businesses, ranging from solo freelancers to corporate innovation teams. Membership tiers run from day passes at €37 through the Family plan (€123/month, flexible seating, 24/7 access) up to a dedicated Fixly desk at €346/month. In November 2018 Factory300 extended into the Strada del Startup — a 230-metre internal production street offering 57 private office units with around 300 additional workplaces, at that point roughly 80 percent occupied at launch. Corporate anchors Fill, MIBA, and Raiffeisenlandesbank OÖ hold memberships alongside growth-stage startups. Notable alumni include Blockpit, which raised €8.4 million in crypto-tax software funding, and Celantur, an automotive technology spin-out. Factory300 runs regular community events, a lending library of meeting-room credits, and maintains ties to the broader Upper Austrian startup support network through its location within the Tabakfabrik ecosystem.
Florian Kaps is an Austrian entrepreneur and analog media advocate, best known as co-founder of The Impossible Project, the initiative that saved Polaroid instant film from extinction and restarted global production of analog instant photography. He is also the founder of Supersense, a Vienna-based cultural concept store and event space dedicated to analog art, music, and photography. Kaps is a prominent figure in entrepreneurial ventures at the crossroads of analog culture and contemporary creative communities.
Two-day festival at Gartenbaukino gathering 1,500+ creatives at the intersection of design, technology and entrepreneurship. Features 20+ international speakers, hands-on workshops and 25+ talks on creative processes, breakthroughs and craft.
British-Canadian computer scientist and cognitive psychologist widely regarded as a godfather of deep learning, a 2024 Nobel laureate in Physics and Turing Award winner for his work on neural networks. He is an announced speaker at the 2026 TEDAI Vienna conference.
Virtual pitch competition for deep-tech startups aligned with the CES spotlight, organized by the Austrian startup ecosystem. Features international jury panels and exposure to global investors and corporate innovation teams. Strong entry point for hardware, biotech, and frontier-tech founders seeking international visibility beyond Europe.
GoStudent is a Vienna-based online tutoring platform founded in 2016 by Felix Ohswald and Gregor Mueller. The platform connects students with vetted tutors for one-on-one video lessons across subjects from math and science to languages. GoStudent raised over EUR 675 million and was valued at EUR 3 billion at its 2022 peak, making it one of Europe's most valuable edtech companies. The company operates in over 20 countries and has served more than 1.5 million tutoring sessions. After rapid pandemic-era growth, GoStudent refocused on unit economics and profitability, while expanding into AI-powered learning tools and school partnerships.
Grand Garage is a makerspace and educational workshop embedded within the Tabakfabrik Linz campus at Peter-Behrens-Platz 6, 4020 Linz. The facility spans approximately 2,000 square metres and equips members with access to more than 40 professional machines covering laser cutters, 3D printers, CNC routers, electronics workbenches, and analogue woodworking tools. Members enjoy 24/7 keycard access to the production floor, while drop-in workshop hours run Tuesday through Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings for non-members and students. The space positions itself explicitly at the intersection of digital fabrication and skills education: alongside open membership it runs structured workshop programmes for schools and vocational training institutions throughout Upper Austria. Startups and product developers use Grand Garage primarily for rapid hardware prototyping — moving from concept sketches to physical prototypes without committing to factory tooling. Companies, associations, and educational institutions are listed as cooperation partners, giving the space a hybrid character between a community makerspace and a light industrial R&D facility. The membership model supports both individual makers and team-level access, consistent with an open-floor coworking approach applied to physical production rather than desk work.
Grow F is an accelerator programme run by Female Founders, a Vienna-based organisation building one of Europe's leading communities and support networks for women entrepreneurs. The programme supports female-led, high-growth startups with mentoring, investor access and a structured curriculum to help them raise funding and scale internationally.
Deep-tech commercialization program and successor to the I.E.C.T. Summer School, running since 2015. It delivers an intensive week of mentorship for science-driven founders preparing a pre-seed or seed raise, culminating in a Demo Day where teams pitch to a curated group of investors and corporate partners.
A one-week intensive deep-tech commercialization program, successor to the I.E.C.T. Summer School, for ambitious founders preparing a pre-seed or seed raise within the next year. The week of mentorship and collaboration culminates in a Demo Day where founders pitch to a curated group of investors and corporate partners. In 2026 the program is hosted in Styria.
Impact Hub Vienna, founded in 2009, is a coworking space and community hub for social entrepreneurs and impact-driven organizations in Vienna, part of the global Impact Hub network. It runs 6–8 incubation and acceleration programs per year spanning integration, education, health, and sustainability, and has supported more than 500 startups across over 40 programs. The community numbers more than 550 members and includes founders, NGOs, corporates, and investors aligned around creating measurable social or environmental impact.
Founded 2002. Academic incubator supported by University of Vienna, TU Wien, and Vienna Business Agency. Helps research-driven startups commercialize IP via START:IP and SCALEup, with funding up to EUR 100K and lab access. Scope: Regional (Vienna).
Austria's largest manufacturing and welding trade fair at Messe Wels, drawing 30,000+ industrial buyers and 500+ exhibitors across automation, robotics, additive manufacturing, and metalworking. Free with pre-registration or about EUR 25 on-site. Strong for automation, tooling, and industrial IoT startups seeking DACH factory pilots.
Leading Austrian funding-lifecycle event at Apothekertrakt Schönbrunn, Vienna, connecting angel investors, venture capital and private equity with innovative entrepreneurs. Full-day panels, keynotes, expo area, matchmaking via B2Match, and evening program.
IST cube is an early-stage, deep-tech venture capital firm and incubator connected to the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) near Vienna. It invests seed capital in science-based startups, particularly in artificial intelligence, life sciences and other frontier technologies, and supports founders spinning research out of academia into companies.
Nobel laureate economist and professor at Columbia University, former chief economist of the World Bank, known for work on information economics, inequality and globalization. He is an announced speaker at the 2026 European Forum Alpbach in Tyrol.
German engineer and technology executive serving as Chief Technology Officer of NXP Semiconductors, a leading global semiconductor company, with deep expertise in automotive, IoT and edge computing. He is an announced speaker at the 2026 Technology Talks Austria conference.
Scientist and entrepreneur working at the intersection of AI and drug discovery, focused on using computational methods to rescue and repurpose previously failed drug candidates. She is an announced speaker at the 2026 TEDAI Vienna conference on AI and drug discovery.
Albanian-born political theorist and Professor of Political Theory at the London School of Economics and Political Science, an award-winning author writing on freedom, justice and democracy. She is an announced speaker at the 2026 European Forum Alpbach.
Technology leader at Prewave, a Vienna-based supply-chain risk and ESG monitoring startup that uses AI to track disruptions and compliance risks across global supplier networks. She is an announced speaker at the 2026 Technology Talks Austria conference.
Austrian venture capital investor and General Partner at Speedinvest, one of Europe's most active early-stage funds, with a focus on deep tech, industrial technology and hardware startups. She is an announced speaker at the 2026 Technology Talks Austria conference.
AI researcher working on self-supervised learning and world models, contributing to advances in machine perception and representation learning at a leading AI research lab. He is an announced speaker at the 2026 TEDAI Vienna conference on AI and world models.
Multivative is a Graz-based early-stage startup that builds modular prototyping systems and Pick2Place workflows designed to accelerate electronics and hardware development for manufacturing teams. The company focuses on helping SMEs and industrial R&D labs produce electronic prototypes faster and more affordably by simplifying component placement and assembly steps. Multivative has received funding through the SURE5.0 Industry 5.0 programme and is part of the growing Styrian hardware and industrial automation startup cluster in Austria.
American journalist and media executive serving as Chief Executive Officer of The Atlantic, former editor-in-chief of WIRED, and a frequent commentator on technology, AI and society. He is an announced speaker at the 2026 TEDAI Vienna conference on AI and safety.
Nuki is a Graz-based Austrian startup, founded in 2014 by brothers Martin Pansy (CEO) and Jürgen Pansy, that makes retrofit smart locks and access hardware requiring no drilling and fitting most existing European door cylinders in minutes. Its line spans the flagship Smart Lock Ultra — with a brushless motor that unlocks in under a second and a 2025 CES Innovation Award — alongside the Keypad 2 (PIN, fingerprint and NFC), Opener (intercom bridge), Fob and Door Sensor, with compatibility across Apple Home, Alexa, Google Home and SmartThings. Nuki was the first electronic lock with native Matter support and an early adopter of the Aliro NFC access standard, and is privacy-first, requiring no mandatory user account. By early 2026 Nuki had over 600,000 smart locks deployed, more than one million active users and over two billion locking operations a year, positioning it as Europe's leading smart-lock brand after 50%+ annual sales growth in 2022 and 2023. The company entered the US market in July 2025 and is preparing a door-integrated Smart Module for late 2026. Nuki has raised roughly €22M, led by German growth investor Cipio Partners in a €20M+ 2021 round with Austrian backers Up to Eleven, Fortuna and Venta, and was an earlier strategic partner of Allegion.
Austrian banking executive and Chief Executive Officer of Erste Group Bank, one of Central and Eastern Europe's largest financial services providers, with a long career in retail and digital banking. He is an announced speaker at the 2026 European Forum Alpbach.
Austrian software engineer and entrepreneur, founder of PSPDFKit and a prominent voice in AI agents and developer tooling, more recently building in the AI agent space. He is an announced speaker at the 2026 TEDAI Vienna conference on AI and agents.
Deep-tech and innovation conference at the Hofburg Imperial Palace in Vienna, bringing together 2,500+ founders, investors, and corporate innovators. Known for its startup pitch competition, investor matchmaking, and focus on frontier technologies.
Predicting Health develops AI-based clinical risk prediction tools that analyze patient data to support early intervention and improve care quality. The company is a spin-off from the KAGes Data Science Team in Graz and operates in the same category as platforms like PIPRA.
ProSiebenSat.1 PULS 4 is Austria's leading commercial broadcaster and digital entertainment group, operating channels including PULS 4, PULS 24, and ATV. The company founded the 4GAMECHANGERS Festival in 2016 as its flagship social responsibility initiative, bringing together entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and innovators at Vienna's Marx Halle. ORF joined as co-organizer in 2022. In 2026, ProSiebenSat.1 PULS 4 organized the 4GAMECHANGERS AI-Day focused on practical AI adoption in media production.
refurbed is a Vienna-based online marketplace for refurbished electronics, household appliances, and sports equipment, founded in 2017 by Peter Windischhofer, Kilian Kaminski, and Jurgen Riedl. The platform connects certified refurbishers with consumers seeking sustainable, warranty-backed alternatives to new devices at savings of up to 40%. refurbed operates across 11 European markets including Germany, Austria, Italy, and Sweden, and has raised over EUR 55 million. By planting a tree for every product sold, the company emphasizes its sustainability mission and has become one of Austria's most visible circular-economy startups.
Regus Linz Promenade is a fully serviced flexible workspace centre at Promenade 23, 4020 Linz, positioned along the city's principal boulevard between the Hauptplatz and the Landstraße zone. As part of the global Regus network, the centre offers a spectrum of workspace products — hot-desking and coworking memberships, dedicated desks, private day offices from €149 per day, and team offices for groups of various sizes — all under short-term, flexible contracts with no minimum rental period. The space is fully furnished and staffed, with receptionist services, high-speed internet, meeting rooms, and cleaning included in all plans. Private office memberships start from approximately €15 per person per day at the coworking tier. The Promenade address gives members a prestigious Linz business address in the commercial core of the city, accessible directly from the Hauptplatz tram interchange. The centre serves established SMEs, corporate project teams, and internationally mobile professionals who require reliable, immediately operational workspace rather than a community-first startup environment. Regus Linz Promenade functions as the most enterprise-oriented coworking option in central Linz, complementing the startup-focused spaces concentrated in the Tabakfabrik campus.
RobotDreams is a Graz-based healthtech startup founded in 2022 that develops AI diagnostics software analyzing blood biomarker data to accelerate detection of acute conditions such as acute coronary syndrome. The platform aims to reduce diagnostic turnaround times in emergency departments by applying machine learning to in-vitro diagnostics results, helping clinicians make faster triage decisions. RobotDreams competes in the growing AI-enabled clinical diagnostics space and targets hospitals, laboratories, and emergency-care providers across Europe.
Austrian executive and Chief Executive Officer of Infineon Technologies Austria, a leading semiconductor manufacturer, and a prominent advocate for research, innovation and industrial competitiveness in Europe. She is an announced speaker at the 2026 Technology Talks Austria conference.
French-born Georgian politician and diplomat who served as President of Georgia from 2018, the first woman to hold the office, drawing on a long career in French diplomacy before entering Georgian politics. She is an announced speaker at the 2026 European Forum Alpbach.
Science Park Graz is a high-tech startup incubator in Graz, Austria, linked to the city's universities, that supports early-stage deep-tech and science-based founders. It provides incubation programmes, coaching, workspace and access to research and investor networks to help spin technology out of academia into companies.
smaXtec builds ingestible sensor and AI monitoring systems for dairy cows to detect health issues early and improve herd management decisions, competing with precision livestock platforms such as Allflex, CowManager, and Nedap.
Speedinvest is one of Europe's most active pre-seed and seed-stage venture capital firms, founded in 2011 in Vienna by Oliver Holle. The firm manages over EUR 600M across sector-focused funds covering fintech, deep tech, marketplaces, and industrial tech, with offices in Vienna, Berlin, London, Munich, and San Francisco. Speedinvest invests EUR 500K-2M initially and follows on to Series A, having backed 300+ companies including Bitpanda, GoStudent, Tier Mobility, Open, and Wefox. The firm operates a 40-person platform team providing hands-on support in hiring, legal, growth, and US market entry.
Regional meetup event in Klagenfurt, hosted by AustrianStartups, fostering connections within the local startup community as part of their ongoing series.
Regional startup community meetup in Klagenfurt, Carinthia, focused on connecting local founders, mentors, and ecosystem builders. Part of the AustrianStartups nationwide event series fostering grassroots entrepreneurship. Valuable for founders in southern Austria seeking local support networks and regional investor introductions.
Established in 2018 to support tech startups in the Tyrol region with tailored mentorship, business plan coaching, and connections to experts and Alpine industry partners. Scope: Regional (Tyrol). Support: mentor network, strategy workshops, investor introductions.
Stefan Kollinger is Chief Innovation Officer at ORF, Austria's public broadcasting corporation, where he leads innovation strategy and digital technology initiatives. He is a key executive responsible for driving ORF's transformation in the face of streaming competition and AI disruption. He participated as a speaker at the 4GAMECHANGERS AI-Day 2026, representing ORF's perspective on practical AI adoption within public media workflows.
Storyblok is a headless content management system founded in 2017 in Linz, Austria by Dominik Angerer and Alexander Feiglstorfer. The platform provides a visual editor and API-first architecture that enables developers and marketing teams to create, manage, and publish content across websites, mobile apps, and digital displays from a single source. Storyblok has raised over $80 million from investors including Mubadala Capital, HV Capital, and 3VC. The company serves thousands of customers including Adidas, Tesla, and Pizza Hut. As a fully remote-first Austrian company that competes with Contentful and Sanity, Storyblok is a standout example of enterprise SaaS innovation from outside Europe's traditional tech hubs.
Vienna-based AI canvas for architects providing a browser-based collaborative design environment where natural-language prompts generate vector floorplans, 2D drawings, 3D models, and video renders up to 1,000× faster than traditional CAD tools. 60,000 users within months of beta launch. Raised €3.06M pre-seed from Plug and Play.
Tabakfabrik Linz is a landmark creative and innovation campus occupying a former tobacco factory built between 1929 and 1935 by architects Peter Behrens and Alexander Popp. Production halted in September 2009, after which the City of Linz acquired the site for €17 million and began a phased conversion into a mixed creative, academic, and startup district. The complex covers 38,148 square metres of land with approximately 24,000 square metres of usable interior space, distributed across studios, ateliers, workshops, and office blocks. More than 250 organisations now operate on-site, including programmes from Kunstuniversität Linz (Creative Robotics, Fashion and Technology), design agencies such as Netural, the Valie Export Center for media and performance art research, and the Factory300 and Strada del Startup startup-office cluster. Workspace options range from artist ateliers and shared studios to private offices, making the campus accessible to creatives, researchers, and founders at various stages. The location — Gruberstraße 1 / Peter-Behrens-Platz 11, Linz — sits in the Hafen district roughly ten minutes from the city centre. The campus functions as an anchor of Linz's creative-industries ecosystem and hosts major cultural events alongside its resident community.
tech2b is a startup incubator in Upper Austria, based in Linz, that supports innovative, future-oriented founders in building and scaling their businesses. It runs structured incubation and pre-seed programmes, offering coaching, funding access and connections across the regional innovation ecosystem.
A two-day flagship innovation conference themed around technological leadership for a resilient Europe, organized by AIT. It convenes international experts and decision-makers from politics, industry and academia for keynotes, plenary debates, in-depth workshops and networking on technological sovereignty, resilient infrastructure and turning research into industrial strength. A strong fit for deep-tech founders and R&D-driven startups.
Local organizing team behind TEDAI Vienna, the official TED conference dedicated to artificial intelligence, produced in collaboration with TED. It curates three days of TED Talks, panels and workshops at the Hofburg for executives, AI builders, researchers and decision-makers from dozens of countries.
The official TED conference dedicated to artificial intelligence, featuring three days of TED Talks, panels and workshops on AI's future at the Hofburg in Vienna. It draws over a thousand guests from dozens of countries and hundreds of organizations, roughly a third of them executives plus AI builders, researchers and decision-makers. A premium, high-signal venue for founders engaging with global AI thought leaders.
TourRadar is a Vienna-based online travel marketplace specialising in multi-day organised tours. Founded in 2010 by brothers Travis and Shawn Pittman, it connects travelers with tour operators worldwide across adventure travel, safaris, river cruises, food tours and hiking trips. The platform lets users browse, compare and book multi-day trips, read traveler reviews and access booking-protection services. It positions itself as an organised adventure platform and has raised venture funding through a Series C round with backers including TCV, Cherry Ventures and Speedinvest.
Tractive builds GPS tracking and health-monitoring products for dogs and cats. Tractive is a startup based in Pasching, Austria at the growth stage. The company operates in the Pet Tech, IoT, Wearables space. Founded in 2012. Learn more at their website.
Trever provides a digital-asset operating system for financial institutions to trade, settle, and manage cryptocurrencies and tokenized securities. In market positioning it overlaps with infrastructure providers such as Fireblocks and Metaco.
UNIQA Ventures is the corporate venture capital arm of UNIQA Insurance Group, founded in 2016 and based in Vienna, with €150 million in investment capital. It invests at Series A and B stages in insurtech, digital health, mobility, and fintech companies, with a particular emphasis on CEE startups. The portfolio has grown to over 50 companies including unicorn Bitpanda, with eight acquisitions among its exits.
Cosmologist and physicist researching dark energy and the large-scale structure of the universe, applying machine learning to astrophysical data and survey missions. She is an announced speaker at the 2026 TEDAI Vienna conference on AI and galaxies.
Venionaire Capital is a Vienna-based boutique venture capital and advisory firm founded in 2012 by Berthold Baurek-Karlic. The firm manages venture funds focused on DACH-region technology startups, investing at seed and Series A in fintech, IoT, and entertainment tech. Venionaire combines direct fund investments with corporate innovation advisory services, helping connect startups with strategic corporate partners. The firm also organizes the ViennaUP conference track and provides M&A advisory for tech companies, positioning itself as a bridge between the Austrian startup ecosystem and international capital markets.
Launched in 2020, VentureCake is a Vienna-based early-stage accelerator providing a structured mentoring track, ecosystem access, and coworking space in central Vienna. The program supports pre-seed and seed startups across tech sectors with workshops on fundraising, product development, and go-to-market. Each cohort culminates in a Demo Day with a EUR 250K pitch prize. VentureCake connects founders with Austrian corporate partners and angel investors. Scope: Local (Vienna).
A two-day tech and careers summit in central Vienna connecting developers, tech companies, and startups, with a job fair, talks, and networking. Useful for founders building engineering teams in the DACH region.
Decentralized city-wide startup festival across 50+ partner events over nine days with 10,000+ international attendees, 1,500+ startups, and active investor matchmaking. Most sessions free or low-cost; main-stage passes around EUR 200. Tracks span social impact, smart city, life sciences, and creative tech, a key CEE entry point for founders.
German diplomat and former chairman of the Munich Security Conference, a veteran ambassador and foreign-policy expert who now leads the Munich Security Conference Foundation. He is an announced speaker at the 2026 European Forum Alpbach on European security.
Conference-led event on energy efficiency and renewables with 600+ experts from 60 countries. Price: about EUR 390 for full conference, with student discounts. Strong for policy-focused green tech founders.
German-American political scientist and Professor of Practice at Johns Hopkins University, a widely published author and commentator on democracy, populism and the future of liberal societies. He is an announced speaker at the 2026 European Forum Alpbach.
Japanese neuroscientist and professor at Kyoto University known for pioneering work on brain decoding and reconstructing mental imagery from neural activity using machine learning. He is an announced speaker at the 2026 TEDAI Vienna conference on AI and the brain.