Startup Fair 2026 took place in Vilnius: 2,000 participants and a 5.3 million euro investment fund

On September 17, hundreds of startup representatives, investors, and over 2,000 participants from 60 countries attended the Startup Fair 2026 event in Vilnius.

On September 17, more than 2,000 participants, 450 startups, and 430 investors from over 60 countries gathered at the LITEXPO Exhibition and Congress Center in Vilnius for the annual Startup Fair 2026. 

Held annually since 2012, the conference has become one of the region's most established events of its kind. Its growing popularity each year also reflects the strengthening of the country's startup ecosystem.

“The growth of Lithuania’s startup ecosystem shows that consistent investment in innovation and in strengthening the business environment is paying off. Over the past five years, the ecosystem has grown 5.9-fold, significantly faster than the average for the Central and Eastern European region, and the total value of Lithuanian startups reached 16.4 billion euros in 2025.  Last year alone, startups attracted 220 million euros in venture capital investments from 77 investors. Our task is to create the conditions for this growth to continue, so that innovations developed in Lithuania not only attract capital but also generate high added value, create new jobs, and strengthen our competitiveness in global markets,” said Edvinas Grikšas, Lithuania’s Minister of Economy and Innovation, who opened “Startup Fair” and was also one of the event’s speakers.

The conference, organized by Startup Lithuania, the national startup ecosystem facilitator, and ROCKIT, a leading innovation platform, brought together business leaders, innovators, and developers from companies such as KILO, Oxylabs, Dry Boots, Cast AI, Nord Security, Karma VC, and others. 

“Lithuania stands out for its abundance of talent and strong potential, which is why it is one of the most interesting markets in the region for us,” says Ska Sijia Du, senior investment specialist at Karma VC, a venture capital firm and partner of the event.

One of the highlights of the event was Pitch Battle, Lithuania’s largest business idea competition, which featured 36 startups, including Vocali, Cornea Sense, Contles, Radiant Robotics, Uvireso, 3P Defense, and others—and 430 investors from more than 60 investment funds, such as Inovo VC, Iron Wolf Capital, Lithuanian Business Angels Network, Karma VC, Bek Ventures, byFounders VC, DN Capital, and others.  The founders competed for a funding package worth more than 1 million euros, while the event's total investment fund amounted to 5.3 million euros. 

According to Marius Stasiukaitis, head of the business division at Go Vilnius, the Vilnius City Tourism and Business Development Agency and one of the conference’s main partners, Startup Fair 2026 provided startups with an opportunity to clearly identify what Vilnius has to offer and to turn their presentations into the start of new contacts, concrete connections, pilot partnerships, or even decisions to relocate their operations to the capital. Otherwise, achieving that result would take an entire year of numerous individual initiatives.

“Vilnius accounts for more than 90 percent of the country’s corporate value and financing, so investors see a single, clearly defined market here rather than a fragmented national landscape. The quality of talent, when weighed against its cost, also contributes to this: the average salary in the technology sector has risen 26 percent over the past three years and now exceeds 4,200 euros per month. This indicates not only competitive pricing but also a talent market that is becoming increasingly professional. – says M. Stasiukaitis. – Vinted, Hostinger, and Nord Security have grown into global businesses, even though their founders did not have the same early access to venture capital that is widely available in the startup ecosystems of London or Berlin. Therefore, Startup Fair has once again confirmed that Vilnius is not a lagging emerging market. It is an ecosystem that, out of necessity, has already learned to use capital efficiently and is now turning this discipline into real-world growth.”

Karolina Urbonaitė, head of the innovation agency Startup Lithuania, says that every year, Startup Fair becomes the place where the vitality of Lithuania’s startup ecosystem is most clearly evident: “This is where ideas, capital, talent, and experience come together, and the connections made here often lead to new investments, partnerships, and business opportunities. The scale of the event and the growing international community demonstrate that Lithuania’s startup ecosystem is growing and gaining an increasingly firm foothold on the European innovation map.”

This year’s conference invited attendees to explore future technologies and the people creating them. Under the slogan Future Belongs to Builders, the program brought together nearly 100 speakers from Lost Astronaut, FIRSTPICK, Ondato, Swedbank, DHL Group, Hostinger, and other companies and organizations.

Startup Fair 2026 also attracted global media attention. David Rowan, founder and editor-in-chief of WIRED and a leading tech speaker, Elaine Moore, technology editor at the Financial Times, and Anna Heim, a journalist at TechCrunch, shared insights on developers, entrepreneurship, markets, innovation, and more.