Invest Sofia and Investment Agencies from Europe at VIENNAUP’23

A record 14,000 attendees from 96 countries visited this year’s VIENNAUP’23 conference in Austria. Europe’s leading event for investment and entrepreneurship took place from 30 May to 7 June and focused on social entrepreneurship, sustainability, creative industries, female business leaders and responsible technology development with over 50 individual thematic events at 27 locations in the Austrian capital. 

Part of the event were Invest Sofia’s experts from the Investment Analysis Department, Ioanna Dragneva and Georgi Brezin. They took part in the panels and startup pitches during the Mobility in Action event, which took place at the Open Innovation Factory – the newly created space by the Austrian Federal Railways for co-innovation in the field of urban mobility. Ioanna Dragneva and Georgi Brezin also participated in Salon Future – the platform for city representatives, startup ecosystem builders and organizations who are dedicated to building and supporting startup ecosystems in their cities. Visitors to the event had the opportunity to participate in panel discussions and networking sessions focused on topics such as building entrepreneurial communities, attracting international startups to their cities, and implementing policies that support the growth of SMEs and newly established companies. 

During VIENNAUP’23, the Invest Sofia team met with representatives from the investment agencies from Austria, Poland, Hungary and Germany to talk about similarities and differences in their activities, the difficulties they encounter, and working practices. Joanna Dragneva and Georgi Brezin also talked with business representatives from Japan, Italy, Israel, Austria, Hungary and Turkey.

The ViennaUP festival is a key event for the startup community not only in Austria but also for the European ecosystem. The event traditionally hosts a vast variety of thematic individual events organized by partnering companies and organisations. Investors, technology experts, people from the creative industries, policy-makers and city experts work together on latest cases and look for the best solutions. Alongside Austrian and European startups, companies from the US, New Zealand, Japan, Thailand, African countries, Australia and Malaysia were part of the festival this year.