Web Summit to Host Curated Meetups in Lisbon, Expecting 70,000 Attendees

Lisbon, Portugal—Web Summit, one of the world's largest technology conferences, announced on Tuesday that it will host hundreds of curated community meetups at its upcoming event in Lisbon this November. 

The conference aims to foster more meaningful connections as it continues to grow.

The event organizers expect over 70,000 attendees, including over 1,000 investors and a record 2,750 startups. 

Web Summit will use its proprietary software, Summit Engine, to group attendees with shared interests and backgrounds for these meetups.

"This will be our biggest, but also our smallest, event yet; we aim to host thousands of community meetups at the event and across Lisbon in November,"

said Web Summit founder and CEO Paddy Cosgrave. 

The conference will feature speakers from major tech companies and other sectors, including Yinon Costica, co-founder of cybersecurity firm Wiz, and Julie De Moyer, chief data and AI officer at LVMH. 

Other notable speakers include Lidiane Jones, CEO of dating app Bumble, and Meredith Whittaker, president of encrypted messaging app Signal.

Global tech giants Meta, Alibaba.com, Amazon Web Services, and Adobe will partner with or speak at the event. 

The conference will also welcome Novo Nordisk, Europe's most valuable company and creator of the weight-loss drug Ozempic, for the first time.

Web Summit's SVP of product, Brian Flanagan, emphasized the event's focus on networking: 

"Ultimately, the best event experience is when you walk away with a stronger network than you came with."

The organizers will invite attendees to at least one curated meetup, which will cover topics such as AI, fintech, crypto, food tech, and sustainability based on their interests and backgrounds.

Web Summit has recently expanded its global presence, with events in Rio de Janeiro, Qatar, and a planned launch in Vancouver in May 2025. 

The company says its events have gathered nearly one million people since its inception as a 150-person conference in Dublin in 2009.