About us
The Startup Funding & Traction Network brings together aspiring and experienced tech entrepreneurs to discuss, meet, and collaborate to build great new startups, and to push the local startup ecosystem forward.\
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This group hosts numerous free events throughout the year where you can learn the best practices of starting a company from people who have been there and done that. You’ll have the opportunity to meet local founders and investors, exchange ideas with experts, get feedback on your idea, participate in startup workshops, and more.\
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Typical startup event topics include:\
• Coming up with a strong startup idea\
• Startup legal basics\
• How to pitch your startup\
• Starting a company without quitting your day job\
• How to raise funding for your startup\
• And much more!\
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Join the group to be invited to our next event!
Upcoming events
3
How to Build an AI Startup
·OnlineOnlineYou have years of experience in your industry and a problem you keep noticing, but you have never built a company. What usually stops people is the order: what to do first, what can wait, and what to skip.
This session has two parts: Kais Neffati, a graduate of our Austria-France Fall 2025 cohort, shares what he learned building Hyvop: how he picked the problem, what he tested first, and how he found his first users. Kasia Sadowska shows the AI tools founders use for early-stage validation, so you can test your idea before you build anything. Register now and leave with your next three steps.
❯ What You'll Learn:
- How a founder turned years of industry experience into a startup
- Which AI tools to use to test an idea before building
- How to check whether a problem is worth solving
- How to find and talk to your first users
- How to fit all of this around a full-time job
❯ Featured Speakers:
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Kais Neffati - Founder @ Hyvop: Software and cloud architect, previously at JCDecaux, VINCI Autoroutes and Ingenico. He is building Hyvop, an AI agent in Slack and Microsoft Teams that finds the owners of unused cloud resources, gets their approval and applies the fix.
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Kasia Sadowska - Director @ Founder Institute Austria: AI product developer with over 10 years of experience building and leading tech startups across Europe. Mechanical engineer by background, she has co-founded ventures in mobility, compliance, edtech and sustainability. She helps founders build and validate products with AI and no-code tools.
❯ Who Should Attend:
- Professionals with years of industry experience who have never built a company
- Employees with an idea they have not acted on yet
- Aspiring founders without a technical background
- Anyone who wants a clear sequence for starting an AI startup
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❯❯ This is a live, interactive online event, so be sure to RSVP at https://fi.co/e/406101/meetup to receive the Zoom URL to join us live!
2 attendees
How to Raise Your First VC Round
·OnlineOnlineRaising venture capital is one of the biggest challenges for early-stage founders. How do you find the right investors, get their attention, and convince them to back your startup? Join Founder Institute Nordics for an exclusive fireside chat with Stéphane Nasser, Co-founder of OpenVC, a platform helping founders discover and connect with investors worldwide. In this practical session, we'll go beyond generic fundraising advice to explore how venture capital actually works, what investors look for, and how founders can build a smarter fundraising strategy. Whether you're preparing your first round, exploring funding opportunities across the Nordics, or looking to connect with international Register now!
❯ Guest Speakers include:
- Stéphane Nasser (Co-Founder, OpenVC)
- Naimul Abd (CEO, Connect Öst & SweBAN - Swedish Business Angel Networks)
❯ What You'll Learn:
- Find the Right Investors: Discover how to identify VCs that match your startup's stage, sector, geography, and funding needs.
- Understand What VCs Really Want: Learn how investors evaluate startups and what makes founders stand out in a competitive funding market.
- Build a Winning Fundraising Strategy: Understand when to raise, how much to target, and how to create a focused investor outreach plan.
- Get Investor Meetings and Pitch Effectively: Explore practical approaches to reaching VCs, crafting compelling messages, and turning conversations into opportunities.
- Avoid Common Fundraising Mistakes: Discover why many founders struggle to raise capital and how to improve your chances of securing investment.
❯ Who Should Attend:
- Early-stage startup founders preparing to raise their first pre-seed or seed round.
- Nordic entrepreneurs looking to discover relevant local, regional, and international venture capital investors.
- Founders actively fundraising who want to improve investor targeting, outreach, and conversion into meetings.
- Ambitious founders building globally scalable startups who want to understand when to raise locally and when to approach international VCs.
- Aspiring entrepreneurs and startup teams who want to understand the VC landscape and become investor-ready before launching a fundraising round.
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❯❯ This is a live, interactive online event, so be sure to RSVP at https://fi.co/e/407222/meetup to receive the Zoom URL to join us live!
3 attendees
Meet the Directors of Founder Institute London (Online Info Session)
·OnlineOnlineInvestors are pissed off with decks right now. This is because founders are creating AI slop. Learn how to create the perfect deck with Shaun Gold from OpenVC and Mercedes Bankston from Loyal VC. Then, for sixty seconds, you pitch. Everyone else in the room learns from your mistake so they do not have to make it themselves. Any stage counts, including an idea you have never said out loud. Register now and bring it.
❯ Featured Mentors:
- Shaun Gold (Chief Evangelist, OpenVC)
- Mercedes Bankston (Venture Partner, Loyal VC)
❯ What You'll Learn:
- How to create an excellent deck
- How to avoid the AI slop
- How to open a pitch so the room knows what you do in one sentence;
- The structure investors and mentors expect, in the order they expect it;
- How to talk about traction when you have none;
- The mistake most founders make at this stage, and the fix;
- How to take feedback in the room without arguing with it.
❯ Who Should Attend:
- Founders preparing to pitch investors, mentors, or an accelerator;
- Founders not getting anywhere with VCs
- Idea-stage founders who have never pitched to strangers;
- Anyone who has pitched and could not tell why it did not land;
- People who want to learn by watching others get honest feedback.
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❯❯ This is a live, interactive online event, so be sure to RSVP at https://fi.co/e/407499/meetup to receive the Zoom URL to join us live!
2 attendees
Past events
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