“Lisbon is kind of the surf capital of Europe, so not going surfing would be a very significant missed opportunity,” said Web Summit CEO Paddy Cosgrave. Organisers claim that around a third of startups who display their products at the Web Summit find a donor within 12 months. Work hard, play hardThe stakes are high: organisers say one fifth of all venture capital invested in the last three years went to firms that participated in Web Summit – accounting for tens of billions of euros. For Michael Memeteau, a founder of an energy startup who will be acting as an unofficial guide for one of the after-hours “pub crawls”, it’s the social aspect that makes Web Summit so popular. “Our success at last year’s Web Summit was what triggered that relationship, because we got a lot of media attention,” he said.

Source: The Star November 07, 2017 08:03 UTC