START Summit 2026: Europe Moves From AI Hype to Deep Tech Execution

Europe's student-run startup conference shifted from AI hype to deep tech commercialization. The Alpine region positioned itself as a structural advantage for industrial innovation, with founders moving from research prototypes to scalable companies.

How an Ex-Google Engineer Built an AI Platform to Fix Early-Stage Startup Funding

When Chris Coomes was handed 100 startup applications with no way to rank them, he realized the early-stage funding ecosystem had not evolved in twenty years. He built X1 Pipeline, an AI-native platform whose investability score evaluates any startup, anywhere, on the same terms.

The Icelandic Founder Who Built the B2B Website That Drives Itself

Ómar Thor Ómarsson spent years as a CMO and agency director watching great B2B companies stay invisible online. He built Optise, the world's first self-driving B2B website platform, to fix that.

How One Italian Founder Is Funding Clean Water Projects Through a Browser Extension

Andrea Demichelis grew up on the Italian Riviera dreaming of a career in finance, then discovered that donations alone cover just 4% of the cost of providing clean water access. He built Elliot for Water, a productivity dashboard that funds clean water projects in developing countries.

How a Turkish-American Mom Built the Marketplace for Children's Activities That Turkey Was Missing

A Turkish-American mother of two saw the gap between New Jersey and Turkey: parents searching for children's activities with no dedicated platform to find them. She built Bulbi, a marketplace for kids aged 0-12, and reached the Web Summit Qatar semi-finals.

The Software Developer Who Coded a Solution to Fashion's $200 Billion Data Problem

When Edgar Azcorra's activewear customers kept coming back, he knew it was because he had asked them what they wanted first. Xactsize is the fit-intelligence platform he built after realizing that the rest of the apparel industry had never asked the same question.

Growing food in the desert is possible with one founder's NASA-inspired photonics technology

A Spanish founder who grew up hungry and moved across three continents found a NASA irrigation technology during COVID lockdowns, built a patented indoor garden sold at Costco, and is now growing food in a Saudi government greenhouse for a nation that imports 90% of its food.

The Founder Who Used Technology to Put the Human Back in Human Resources

Jordan Goure spent two decades hiring across restaurants, real estate, and hospitality before realizing the resume itself was the problem. He built Picsume to replace it, and it now powers Canada's largest hospitality network.

What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit

The F1 Circuit of the Startup Ecosystem. Tracking founders, momentum, and signals as they emerge.

The Platform Giving Amateur Athletes a Permanent Digital Identity

Amateur sports organizations still run on disconnected apps, paper brackets, and no persistent athlete records. Andrii Luzin and Katerina Ianovskaia built Fitofan, a single platform now managing competitions, federations, and athlete profiles across 62 sports in 160 countries.

The South African Engineer Who Saw Half His Workforce Sitting Idle Built a Global Platform to Fix It

Kirshen Naidoo spent 17 years watching engineering firms waste a third of their labor budget on idle engineers, then built Gig Engineer, a South Africa and Qatar-based platform that connects companies with on-demand engineering talent globally.

Why 90% of Drug Candidates Fail and How AI Is Fixing the Broken Funnel

By screening millions of compounds computationally before lab work begins, Rayca Precision is shortening the path from molecular design to oncology treatments.