71 033 attendees at Web Summit from 160 countries
This year, Web Summit sold out earlier than ever before – three weeks ahead of the event. Event organisers have increased space to its absolute maximum, stretching to 204,386 square metres (1,046 tennis courts) in order to accommodate the growth. With the limited available capacity, additional structures have been built, extending onto Oceanos, taking over roads and other local spaces, and adding approximately 21,094 square metres of space for attendees within the site.“The sheer scale of this year’s event is extraordinary. The event space is at maximum capacity, and we are welcoming more attendees, startups, speakers and investors than ever before. We are delighted to be back to full capacity, and are eager to continue to grow in the years to come,” said Paddy Cosgrave, founder and CEO of Web Summit.
2 296 startups and 342 partners from 94 countries at Web Summit
More startups and partners than ever before will exhibit at this year’s event.Web Summit’s exhibition space was sold out six weeks ahead of the event, with floor space increasing to its maximum capacity of 8,478 square metres for partners and startups – a 57-percent growth over 2019. For startups, the most represented industries are SaaS, fintech, AI, ecommerce and advertising. Top partners include Figma, Stripe, AWS, Google and Binance.
Photo by Lukas Schulze/Web Summit via Sportsfile
1 050 speakers and 2 000 – and counting – members of the media presented this year at Web Summit
1,050 speakers – 34 percent of whom are women – will be talking on 26 tracks across 17 stages this year. Many will be interviewed on stage by a number of the 2,000 (and counting) journalists attending the conference. This year, Web Summit will host speakers on four new stages: Book Summit, Verified, Crypto and Security Summit.Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska spoke at the Opening Night ceremony last night (Tuesday, November 1), highlighting the role of technology in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, while also emphasising the power technology has to keep people safe.
Web Summit has welcomed 1 081 investors from 60 countries
Web Summit has welcomed 1,081 investors looking for the most interesting early-stage startups. Investors attending Web Summit have portfolios representing 30 percent of global deal value so far this year, according to PitchBook. Web Summit has once again partnered with PitchBook on the annual investor survey, which revealed that nearly 80 percent of investors say geopolitical events have an impact on investment strategies – up from just 53 percent in 2020.
Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Web Summit via Sportsfile
Women in tech at Web Summit
This year, nearly 30,000 attendees (42 percent) are women. 34 percent of speakers are women – the same as in 2021. While the overall gender balance has dropped from last year, Web Summit remains at near parity. As well as this, there are nearly 400 women-founded companies among the startup cohort.Earlier this year, Web Summit carried out a study within its women in tech community, which found that 49.5 percent of respondents have experienced sexism in the last year, 66.9 percent feel they are paid unfairly compared to their counterparts who are men, and 62.9 percent feel pressure to choose between career and family at least some of the time.
About Web Summit 2022
Web Summit runs the world’s largest technology events, connecting people and ideas that change the world. Web Summit events have gathered half a million people across Web Summit in Lisbon, Web Summit Rio in South America, Collision in North America and RISE in Asia since Web Summit’s beginnings as a 150-person conference in Dublin in 2009. Web Summit’s mission has been to create software that enables meaningful connections between the CEOs, founders, investors, members of the media, politicians and cultural figureheads who are reshaping the world.Forbes says Web Summit is “the best tech conference on the planet”; Bloomberg calls it “Davos for geeks”; Politico “the Olympics of tech”; the Guardian “Glastonbury for geeks”. In the words of the Financial Times, Web Summit is “the world’s largest tech conference”, and the Telegraph calls it the “planet's best tech conference”.
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