Throughout its 2024 and 2025 editions, the EU-Startups Summit has continued to evolve right into a fertile assembly floor for European innovation, the place spontaneous conversations can typically translate into funding cheques, new hires, and strategic collaborations.
Past insightful keynotes and panel discussions, our massive pitch competitors and a buzzing exhibition corridor, our annual summit in Malta has turn out to be the place to be for European startup ecosystem gamers to attach and to collaborate.
The EU-Startups Summit has all the time prided itself on facilitating significant encounters between formidable startups and potential backers.
With a purpose to replace you on current offers and connections that resulted from our two most up-to-date editions in Malta, we spoke to a few of our individuals to learn the way the occasion has helped them unlock new alternatives. Listed below are only a few of the significant offers, hires, and connections that occurred due to the Summit.
Some current Offers & Connections
- EverybodyCounts: This UK-based startup simply secured an funding from AAlchemy Ventures – a deal facilitated via their assembly as a part of the 2025 version of the Summit. Andrey Kostyuk from AAlchemy Ventures said: “This can be a sturdy affirmation of viability of cross-border angel investing”.
- DAITABLE: Šimon Staňo, the CEO and Co-founder of DAITABLE, met their future traders MIG Traders (Netherlands) on the Summit and went on to lift a pre-seed spherical of €220k – “which was a extremely essential second that accelerated us,” shared Staňo.
- Picnic Co-founder and CTO Daniel Gebler, who joined this 12 months’s EU-Startups Summit as speaker, shared that he met an early-stage EdTech startup throughout the 2025 Summit and is presently in remaining talks with them earlier than investing. Extra information about this deal will doubtless be revealed quickly.
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Grasshopper Air Mobility: The Barcelona-based startup creating robotic cargo drones secured an angel funding from Péter Kovács (Founder and Chief Networking Officer at NetworkSmith) after assembly on the rooftop facet occasion. “I met the CEO and Co-founder, Jakob Saalfrank, in Malta on the EU-Startups Summit, and we had an awesome chat over drinks on the rooftop facet occasion organised by Leonard Burger,” mentioned Kovács. “By no means miss the rooftop facet occasions.”
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Level Up EMEA: CEO Alessio Borrelli met Irene Caminiti – then a volunteer on the Summit – and was so impressed that she finally grew to become the Enterprise Improvement Director on the firm, enjoying a key position of their regional enlargement. “Past the numerous priceless connections with potential shoppers and traders, your occasion provided us an sudden and rewarding alternative: it’s the place we met Irene Caminiti, who was volunteering on the time,” Borrelli famous. “We have been instantly impressed by her expertise and potential; we’re now proud to share that she has joined Degree Up EMEA as our Enterprise Improvement Director.”
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Crowdfunding Coach Mattia Di Stasi praised the Summit’s intimate scale for straightforward, focused networking, resulting in a collaboration with Nora from Toke Platform and involvement in Malta crowdfunding occasions, new shoppers like Completely happy Pot and Ryder who he’s advising on potential Kickstarter launches, and real, results-driven partnerships. “I’m genuinely glad to have been a part of this occasion, and I imagine initiatives like this one are essential to rising an actual startup tradition in Europe,” Di Stasi shared.
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Pangea Social Co-founder Eric Forst discovered a brand new advisor throughout this 12 months’s EU-Startups Summit – Magnus Magnusson – who has since formally joined their advisory board.
- Plug and Play Tech Center x Mountside Ventures: Thomas Bigagli (Plug and Play) and Jonathan Hollis (Mountside) linked on the Summit, and the encounter led to ongoing collaboration talks, together with co-hosting occasions and strategic synergies for rising VCs and LPs. “We started discussing potential collaborations, exploring how we may help Mountside new initiatives for rising VCs and LPs, drive our portfolio firms towards their platform, and co-host key occasions at main fundraising conferences,” shared Bigagli.
- StudiesIn participated within the final two editions of the EU-Startups Summit, the place the founders engaged in over 25 conferences with traders within the firm’s mission to simplify worldwide training in Europe and have additionally strengthened their relationship with Malta Enterprise who already granted them €400k in non-dilutive funding. After becoming a member of the Summit in 2024 already along with Supercharger Ventures, StudiesIn determined to open a brand new workplace in Malta. Now they’re about to lift an fairness funding spherical for additional enlargement.
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4girls.ai: The startup launched its AI Literacy Index Research throughout the 2025 Summit and sparked a priceless new partnership with a number one Girls in Tech community to assist scale its mission for empowering women in AI.
As regulatory and monetary limitations reduce throughout Europe, these sorts of alliances, brokered informally over espresso or cocktails, have gotten defining options of the EU-Startups Summit. There are numerous of nice tales on the market, along with the few examples talked about above.
Malta as a hub of connections
Malta Enterprise continues to drive the island’s ambition to turn out to be a number one hub for innovation and entrepreneurship in Europe. And it appears to be understanding properly.
This exhibits for instance in current knowledge from the 2025 Global Startup Ecosystem Report, which positioned Malta firmly on the worldwide innovation map. The nation’s startup ecosystem generated €3.6 billion in worth in 2025 – a 39% improve year-over-year – pushed by profitable exits and strategic investments.
Malta additionally ranks third within the MENA area for “Bang for Buck,” and its deal with high-value sectors like FinTech, life sciences, and digital tech is supported by devoted infrastructure and programmes. Within the 2024 Startup Nations Normal Report, Malta maintained its 4th-place rating in Europe, scoring 100% in talent attraction and digital transformation.
On the EU-Startups Summit, Prof. Dietmar Keuschnig mirrored on his expertise and praised each the occasion and Malta’s strategic course: “The occasion was a real hub of innovation and vitality, filled with priceless displays and a extremely skilled setup all through. One spotlight being the inspiring dialog with the staff from Malta Enterprise. It’s clear that Malta is positioning itself as a strong basis for startups and an rising hub the place modern enterprise fashions can actually thrive.”
Authorities-led initiatives, together with a €9.2 million enterprise capital fund, DiHubMT, and the upcoming Excessive-Efficiency Laptop (HPC), proceed to boost the native ecosystem. These efforts are a part of Malta Imaginative and prescient 2050, geared toward fostering a resilient, innovation-driven financial system.
Occasions just like the EU-Startups Summit play a key position on this imaginative and prescient, providing platforms that join native and worldwide innovators whereas reinforcing Malta’s status as a fast-rising startup vacation spot.
The Pitch Winner
One of the talked-about moments on the 2025 version of the EU-Startups Summit was absolutely the pitch that received all of it.
Stockholm-based PryvX, the winner of the EU-Startups Summit 2025 Pitch Competitors, impressed each the jury and attendees with its platform for privacy-preserving knowledge collaboration, enabling safe cross-industry cooperation with out compromising delicate data.
Following their standout pitch, which beat out over 1,500 candidates, the staff attracted curiosity from a number of traders they met throughout the Summit and is now within the technique of finalising a funding spherical that can embody contributions from these connections.
PryvX is already demonstrating its cutting-edge know-how and the momentum from their summit victory, alongside a prize bundle value over €755k, helps propel the startup into its subsequent stage of progress.
Ultimate Ideas
From rooftop networking and fireworks, to spontaneous hires to cross-border angel offers and civic initiatives, the EU-Startups Summit in Malta has turn out to be greater than a yearly gathering; it’s an engine of momentum for startups seeking to scale, increase capital, or just discover the precise folks.
If the final two editions are something to go by, the 2026 version is already shaping as much as be a can’t-miss rendezvous on Europe’s entrepreneurial calendar. See more info here.
