Dubai’s Expand North Star is a must-attend for Europe’s startups, scaleups and investors

When you want to go big, you go to Dubai. The UAE city has firmly established itself as the Middle East’s fastest-growing ecosystem, with strong support for entrepreneurs, investors and SMEs and a robust funding environment. It also offers a gateway to new markets in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Australia.

The best place to learn all that Dubai has to offer is Expand North Star, the biggest tech startup and investor show in the world, held from October 13th to 16th.

Hosted by the Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy and inspired by GITEX GLOBAL, Expand North Star is the annual go-to event for startups, investors, accelerators, and tech enthusiasts to source funding and investment deals and stay up to date with the industry.

Held at the iconic Dubai Harbour, the mammoth event includes over 450 speakers — including 18 unicorns from companies such as Perplexity, DeepL, Karya, and Ripple — across 18 conference tracks across 9 stages. 

It will be attended by over 70,000 people including over  1,800 startups — a 25 per cent increase from last year’s bumper event — and 1,200 investors. 

Beyond borders

It’s not just an opportunity to access the Dubai tech ecosystem — it is truly an international event with global participants from Australia, Taiwan, Canada, Ireland, Lithuania, and Portugal. Brazil is represented by 50 startups, Europe over 350, and you can expect to meet 600 startups from Korea. 

The conference itself is grouped around several central themes:

• AI
• Future of Media and Creativity
• Climate Tech, 
• Deeptech,
• Fintech and Blockchain.

Speakers include Sir Martin Sorrell and Neil Patel, representatives of Volocopter, BitPanda, Binance, Climeworks, Skeleton Technologies, Kraft Heinz, Mars, VML, Rolling Stone, and Africa and India’s largest crypto exchanges. 

Speaking of crypto, there’ll be a professional Web3 Comedy Roast of Crypto Influencers boasting over 4.1 million combined social media influence.

Investors galore

Expand North Star 2024 will feature a distinguished roster of investors, including prominent European funds like the European Investment Fund, bpifrance, EIC, and Santander, as well as global players like LG Ventures, Honda Innovations, J&J, Bessemer Ventures, Menlo Park, Lightrock, eqt ventures, new enterprise associates, and Venrock.

The conference will also host representatives from leading incubators, accelerators, associations, and publications, such as Future Energy Ventures (Germany), Beamline (Estonia), ESG Mena & Nexus Climate (UAE), Unicorn Factory Lisboa (Portugal), and ReimaginEd Collective (UAE).

VCs, accelerators, and investors are invited to participate in an exclusive program of one-on-one meetings, engaging panel discussions, and the Supernova Challenge, the world’s largest pitch competition with a US$200,000 cash prize.

But the event is more than just panels and fireside chats. B2B startups or scaleups can gain warm introductions by attending corporate innovation challenges facilitated by Bridgestone, 1trepreneur, Nvidia, and the Department of Health.

Co-located with Expand North Star, GITEX Impact will include an exclusive Carbon Solutions Launchpad showcasing global startups, five exclusive product launches, and climate VCs from Germany, the UK, Switzerland, and Vietnam doing country case studies.

The event also includes artists from football, afro beats, climate activists and singers, filmmakers, and celebrity stylists as they share their tech journey and perform on stage—including Gilberto Silva, Rocky Dawuni, AY Young, Shekhar Kapur, Swanky Jerry, SL The DJ, Larry Drille, and more.

Peter Brady, Assistant VP –  DWTC, sees Expand North Star as an opportunity to shape the future of technology and innovation:

“With thousands of international startups and fully vetted investors expected to join us, we’re harnessing the unparalleled power of collaboration and forward-thinking to illuminate the path toward a brighter, more connected world.

Looking at expanding the economic impact of the global startup ecosystem and addressing the unprecedented opportunities of cross-regional partnerships, the 2024 edition of Expand North Star offers an unrivalled pre-scheduled concierge meeting service, ensuring meaningful connections for critical companies and investors.”

A powerful scaleup programme will also showcase the most promising rising startups, while we delve deep into the transformative potential of tech transfer.”

More information is available at www.expandnorthstar.com