SLUSH 2023 – “A celebration of Entrepreneurial Grit”
Slush, the world’s leading startup event, will be back this 2023 with 13,000 visitors coming to Helsinki on Nov 30-Dec 1.
This year, Slush aims to bring the best customer experience to date to its attendees, who can get their tickets on May 10, 2023, at 11:00 AM EEST (UTC+3) at Slush.org.
Slush 2023 brings together 5,000 startup founders and operators, and 3,000 investors in Helsinki to celebrate entrepreneurial grit under the theme Building to Last. The reality for startup founders looks drastically different compared to only 12-18 months ago.
Q1/2023 marks Europe’s quietest quarter in VC deals for over six years. As investors have grown more cautious and put increasing focus on profitability, building enduring companies now trumps building explosively growing companies.
The world’s biggest problems need our attention no matter the market cycle. When times get tough, we need to put extra emphasis on the things that matter.
says Slush CEO Eerika Savolainen.
Luckily, we are seeing positive signs of this. In Q1/2023, deep tech and climate tech overtook fintech in funding raised. It’s delightful to see technologies critical for our future continue to be funded throughout market cycles.
Moreover, rarely has a stagnant time felt so exciting. We have all the reasons to believe this decade marks a turning point in the history of technology. Take generative AI as an example – we have already seen it move from SoMe hype to tangible ventures. I cannot wait to see where the industry has gotten by the time of Slush 2023.
Diversity has also been a much-discussed topic in the European ecosystem for multiple years, yet we see no progress. In 2022, only 1% of VC funding went to all-women teams, down from 3% in 2020. Going into the downturn, many people are afraid VCs being more risk-averse will hit the diverse founders the most, as more deals focus on proven repeat founders or network investments.
This is a realistic risk and something we as an ecosystem need to focus on.
states Savolainen.
At Slush, we try to tackle the issue by bringing people from all walks of life together. In addition, we aim to showcase positive role models.
Personally, I’m super excited for some of the most prominent female tech leaders and entrepreneurs to join us on stage, like Claire Hughes Johnson, Advisor at Stripe, Lindsay Kaplan, Co-Founder and CEO of Chief, and Loreanne Garcia, Co-Founder, and Chief People Officer of Kavak.
In addition, Slush stages will be taken by global technology leaders like Tony Xu (Doordash), Alfred Lin (Sequoia), Elad Gil (solo GP and entrepreneur), and Robert Gentz (Zalando), among others.
Slush is a not-for-profit organization led by students and recent graduates on a mission to help and create founders to change the world. The main event brings together the people of the ecosystem at the Expo and Convention Centre Helsinki (Messukeskus) on 30th Nov-1st Dec 2023. Public ticket sales start on the 10th of May, 2023.
Slush’s all-year-round offering
Slush’D
- In addition to the main event, this year Slush supports 15 international teams on four continents in hosting local Slush’D events.
- https://www.slush.org/slushd/
Node by Slush – online community
- Node by Slush is our year-round curated online community that gives startup founders access to all the resources they need on their founder journey. For startup founders and operators, we offer monthly mentoring sessions led by successful founders, office hours with leading investors, and one-on-one meetings with top European VCs.
- slush.node.org