Every event worth your time at Europe's largest decentralised startup festival. 18–22 May. Vienna. Curated by people who actually know the programme.
ViennaUP — the Vienna startup festival — is decentralised by design. Over fifty separately ticketed events scattered across coffee houses, museums, and innovation hubs from 15 to 22 May. The energy is real. The navigation, less so.
This guide cuts the festival down to the events that matter if you care about artificial intelligence, deep tech, and the future of European tech sovereignty. We've sequenced them by day, flagged the unmissable, and added the practical bits — ViennaUP 2026 dates, tickets, transport, where to stay — that the official site spreads across fifteen pages.
It's written for founders, investors, enterprise leaders, researchers, and policymakers planning their week. If that's you, the next ten minutes will save you a few hours.
18–22 May 2026, with WarmUP weekend 15–17 May. The AI density is highest on Tuesday 19 May.
Across Vienna. Festival hub at Karlsplatz Homebase. Human × AI is at Hofstallungen MUMOK in the cultural quarter.
Each event ticketed separately. Most are free with RSVP; some are paid; a few require application. Free one-time registration unlocks all listings.
Human × AI Conference — the conference for AI, ecosystems, and European sovereignty. Tuesday 19 May.
English throughout. As the official site puts it, “the language of Shakespeare, Beyoncé and tech.”
Arrive Mon eve for the Opening Night at City Hall. Pick one anchor event per day. Leave Friday morning with a notebook full of intros.
The premier gathering of innovators, founders and investors at the intersection of artificial intelligence and European ambition. One concentrated day asking the question that defines this decade: will Europe seize this generational momentum to reinvent itself and secure its sovereignty?
Keynotes, fireside chats, problem-solving sessions, a startup pitch round, and curated networking — all under one roof in Vienna's cultural quarter. The format is built for partnerships, not just inspiration.
Curated from the official ViennaUP 2026 programme. We've kept the events with strong AI relevance and dropped the rest. Times and venues are the latest published; always confirm on the official event page before showing up.
A weekend-long collaborative build sprint. The cleanest entry point if you want to land in Vienna with a working network before the festival even officially starts. AI tooling, deep tech challenges, and on-site teams.
High-velocity pitch competition. Watch what's coming through the European pipeline before the rest of the week catches up.
Hosted by the Vienna Business Agency under the chandeliers of the City Hall. Limited capacity, separate registration. The room where the week's conversations get seeded — show up if you can.
Embedded in ViennaUP for the first time. Digital assets, stablecoins, tokenization — adjacent to the AI conversation around agentic finance and on-chain compute markets.
The flagship AI gathering of ViennaUP 2026. Keynotes, panels, pitch session, networking — designed for partnerships and decisions, not just talks. ↑ Full details above
B2B matchmaking with corporates and investors. This year's focus topics include MedTech & Life Sciences (AI-heavy), FrontierTech & AI, GreenTech, and UrbanTech. Includes the Born Global Champions pitch and Corporate Reverse Pitch.
Where digital health and AI move from idea to clinical implementation. Bring this if your AI play touches healthcare delivery, diagnostics, or patient pathways.
Tactical scaling session for early-stage founders building international from day one.
Organised by PeaceTech Hub Vienna and Nexus Group AI. The serious EU AI Act, ethical AI, energy use, and sustainable deployment conversation — with policymakers, technologists, investors, and civil society in the same room. Includes a PeaceTech pitch session.
CEE founder & investor gathering. Where the regional AI-and-deep-tech bench actually shows up. If you're operating from Sofia, Bucharest, Warsaw, Tallinn or anywhere east — this is your room.
Founder-only, off-record, by application. The kind of conversation you can't have on a panel.
Where AI-enabled health, biotech, and longevity meet capital. Focus on extending healthspan, not just lifespan. Heavy on AI in drug discovery, diagnostics, and precision medicine.
The Austrian leg of the global pitch competition. Winner represents Austria at the global final. Expect deep tech and AI startups dominating the line-up.
Annual closed-room session with Austria's top-funded founders. Live panel, Q&A, networking. Apply early — capacity is the limit.
Founders pitch in a Viennese coffee house, get expert feedback, meet investors. The most authentically-Viennese format on the calendar. See our Vienna Coffee Guide →
The festive close. A decade of Global Incubator Network connecting Austrian and Asian startup ecosystems. Less programme, more decompression.
An open-air workout for founders, investors, and operators. Music, sweat, conversation — networking without a name badge.
If you're building an AI company and considering ViennaUP for the pitch surface alone, here's what's actually live in 2026:
Startup World Cup Austria — global pitch series, Austrian leg. Winners go to the international final.
StartupLive '26 — fast-format pitch competition during WarmUP weekend. Lower bar to entry, high reach.
Born Global Champions (at Connect Day 26) — for Austrian startups with international traction. If you're not Austrian-based, apply through Connect Day's broader pitch tracks across FrontierTech & AI, MedTech, GreenTech, UrbanTech.
PeaceTech Conference pitch session — for ethical AI, sustainable AI, and digital governance startups specifically.
Human × AI startup pitch round — included in the conference programme on 19 May. Curated, not open-call. Get in touch via the conference page.
Each event is ticketed separately. Most are free with RSVP; some paid. A one-time free registration on the ViennaUP ticketing platform unlocks the full catalogue. Human × AI runs its own ticketing — book directly via humanxai.events.
Vienna International Airport (VIE) handles most European routes. By train: ÖBB offers a 22% congress discount on standard fares — register a fresh account and enter PZ2TW5. Plus 10% off international fares and special Nightjet pricing.
Wombat's City Hostel near Naschmarkt offers 15% off with code ViennaUP2026. For more central business hotels, festival partners offer 10% off the daily rate with code Viennaup26. Book early — Eurovision 2026 is in Vienna the same month.
Vienna's U-Bahn is fast and goes everywhere relevant. The festival “Homebase” is at Karlsplatz — central, well-connected, designed for drop-in working between events. MUMOK (the Human × AI venue) is a 7-minute walk from Karlsplatz.
Discover ViennaUP offered up to €500 reimbursement for selected international startups in 2026. Applications closed on 15 March. Set a calendar reminder for January 2027 if you want in next year.
Pick one anchor event per day, leave whitespace for the side conversations — those are where the real value lives. Bring a power bank. Vienna runs on espresso, not iced coffee. Tipping is appreciated but not required.
ViennaUP 2026 runs from 18 to 22 May 2026, with a WarmUP weekend on 15–17 May. The festival takes place across multiple venues throughout Vienna.
ViennaUP is decentralised, so each event is ticketed separately. Most events are free with RSVP; some are paid; a few require an application. You can see prices after a one-time free registration on the ViennaUP ticketing platform. The flagship Human × AI Conference on 19 May has its own ticketing on humanxai.events.
Many ViennaUP events are free to attend with RSVP. Others have paid tickets or require an application. Because each event is independently organised by a different partner, the model works more like a city-wide festival than a single conference.
Human × AI is the flagship AI conference of ViennaUP 2026, held on Tuesday 19 May at Hofstallungen MUMOK. It brings together founders, investors, researchers, enterprise leaders, and policymakers to ask: will Europe seize this generational momentum to reinvent itself and secure its sovereignty? Format includes keynotes, fireside chats, panels, a startup pitch round, and curated networking.
Vienna International Airport (VIE) is the main gateway. By train, ÖBB Austrian Railways offers a 22% congress discount on standard fares for ViennaUP attendees — use TAN code PZ2TW5 when registering a new ÖBB account. There's also 10% off international fares and special Nightjet pricing.
English. As the official festival site puts it, ViennaUP runs in “the language of Shakespeare, Beyoncé and tech.” Speakers and attendees come from 90+ countries.
ViennaUP 2025 brought together more than 15,000 participants from over 90 countries. The 2026 edition expects similar scale across 50+ events at 29+ venues.
The flagship is Human × AI Conference on 19 May. Other AI-relevant events include PeaceTech Conference 2026 (20 May, ethical AI and the EU AI Act), From Pitch to Patient (19 May, AI in healthcare), Connect Day 26 (19 May, MedTech and Life Sciences), the European Tech Hackathon (15–17 May), and pitch competitions across FrontierTech & AI throughout the week.
Hofstallungen MUMOK is part of the Museumsquartier complex in central Vienna — the city's cultural quarter. It's a 7-minute walk from Karlsplatz (the festival Homebase) and well-connected by U-Bahn lines U2 and U3.
ViennaUP runs annually in May. Based on past editions, expect ViennaUP 2027 around mid-to-late May 2027. The Vienna Business Agency typically announces dates in autumn the year before. Sign up to the Human × AI newsletter and we'll flag it the moment it drops.
One short email when ViennaUP 2027 dates drop. Plus monthly Human × AI signals on Europe's AI sovereignty story. No noise.
