Web Summit Forecasts 70,000 Attendees and a Record Number of Startups for the 2024 Edition

The 2024 Web Summit, scheduled for November in Lisbon, is expected to welcome more than 70,000 participants, including 1,000 investors and a record-breaking 2,750 startups. This year, the event will have a renewed focus on creating meaningful connections through hundreds of curated meetups, facilitated by the Web Summit’s proprietary software, Summit Engine. According to Paddy Cosgrave, founder and CEO of the Web Summit, “it will be our biggest, but also our smallest event,” referring to the combination of large scale and more intimate, personalized experiences.

Some of the world’s biggest companies, such as Meta, Alibaba.com, Amazon Web Services, Adobe, Visa, and Salesforce, will be present. The Web Summit will also highlight innovative initiatives, such as the Ukraine Tech Ecosystem, and the participation of Novo Nordisk, the creator of Ozempic and Europe’s most valuable company, which will attend for the first time.

A major new feature this year is the curated meetups, allowing participants to be grouped based on their interests and backgrounds, creating an environment conducive to deeper connections. This concept, tested at Web Summit events in Rio and Toronto, aims to make the event more personalized, fostering networking in areas such as AI, fintech, crypto, food tech, and sustainability.

Among the confirmed speakers are prominent figures like Lidiane Jones, CEO of Bumble, Meredith Kelly, CMO of Škoda Auto, and Omar Berrada, CEO of Manchester United. The speaker lineup also includes Yinon Costica, co-founder of Wiz, and Meredith Whittaker, president of Signal, among other business leaders and influential figures in technology, AI, and communication.


Portugal, as the host country, will also be represented by Prime Minister Luís Montenegro, Margarida Balseiro Lopes, Minister of Youth and Modernization, and business leaders like Vasco Pedro, CEO of Unbabel.

The 2024 Web Summit promises to be a platform for innovation and networking, standing out for its ability to bring together communities from different sectors and drive discussions on the impact of technology on the world.