The inaugural Web Summit Vancouver wrapped up on Friday after welcoming 15,727 attendees from 117 countries to the Vancouver Convention Centre.
On opening night, Web Summit founder and CEO Paddy Cosgrave said, “We’re at a pivotal moment in history – technology is advancing faster than ever, transforming how we live, work, and connect. The world is also changing, from a unipolar world to a multipolar world. And everyone’s asking: What will our future look like? And that’s why many are here. Web Summit is a window into our shared, increasingly technology-driven future. Over the next few days, we’ll welcome more than 15,000 attendees from over 100 countries, including thousands of startups.”
Visitors from Brazil, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Nigeria, Portugal, Quatar, South Korea, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, the United States and many more were part of the trade delegations attending North America’s first Web Summit event. As well, a record 1108 startups from 64 countries followed in the footsteps of past Web Summit startup successes like UBER, Hello Fresh, Waze and Turo.
44% of the presenting startups were women-founded, highlighting strong female representation in the global startup ecosystem. In a testament to the strength of Vancouver’s entrepreneurial spirit for the first time ever Web Summit’s PITCH competition had a finale with all-female, Vancouver-based businesses: Vodasafe, Lite-1, and Glüxkind. Coming out on top, Lite-1 is a company reinventing colour for a cleaner future using microbes—not petrochemicals—to create vibrant, sustainable pigments.
Industry leaders like Microsoft, Mastercard, Fujitsu, IBM, Talkdesk, Figma, along with hundreds of investors such as Deloitte Ventures, FPV Ventures, 500 Global, and Initialized Capital, lent their mentorship, connections, collaboration and investments.
Hundreds of local and global media were on hand to capture every moment of the announcements and sessions with the 345 speakers, discussing topics including AI and machine learning, SaaS, health-tech and wellness, fintech and financial services, travel and sustainability and cleantech.
While there was plenty of business taking place, Web Summit wasn’t all work. 88 dedicated, group meetups curated with the aid of Web Summit’s stellar app which used attendee profiles to send personalized invitations and foster networking.
Although Vancouver Convention Centre is surrounded by plenty of great options, Food Summit, kept attendees sustained throughout the day with a bounty of favourite local food trucks on-hand inside and out. To keep the networking and friendship going afterhours, Night Summit helped introduce visitors to different Vancouver areas with evening entertainment and fun at Bentall Centre in the Business District, Helmcken Plaza in Yaletown and The Shipyards in North Vancouver.
The first Vancouver Web Summit offered so much benefit for attendees and the city, it was hard to take in every moment, but with at least two more years confirmed in Vancouver there will be plenty of opportunity to learn and explore more exiting tech in the years to come.
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