INVESTOR OFFICE HOURS
75-minute private sessions hosted by VCs for founders with topics ranging from fundraising to company building.
Day 1 & 2 at the Slush Venue
Playfair Capital – Female Founder Office Hours
Female Founder Office Hours (FFOH) is the largest office hours initiative for women founders in Europe – and this year for the third time at Slush. Started by the Playfair Capital team in 2019, FFOH has brought together 2500 founders for 10,000 one-to-one mentoring and pitch meetings with over 200 investors across eleven editions to date.
Read more about the FFOH initiative here.
This year together with Slush, Zendesk and Women TechEU – FFOH will gather 25 female founders to meet and network with 25 top European VCs at the heart of the Slush venue.
TIME & LOCATION
Wednesday, Nov 20, 2024 at Slush at 10:30-11:50
ACCESS
The event is reserved for 25 female founders. We will do our best to accommodate as many founders as possible.
AGENDA
10:30-10:50 – Doors open & panel with Zendesk and Women TechEU
10:50-11:50 – 1-on-1 sessions
Antler – A Founder's First 100 Days
The decisions a founder makes in the first 100 days of their startup can lay the foundation for future success, or create problems that become harder and harder to solve.
Antler, the most active early-stage VC in Europe and the world’s leading day zero investor, will host this session for new and aspiring founders to discuss how to make the first 100 days of a startup really count.
Antler Partners, other VCs and founders will share their insights and experiences, and there will be time for Q&A and networking.
Spintop Ventures – Female Founders Forum
Diversity is a superpower Spintop has been investing in since 2009. We are currently investing from our fourth fund and can proudly say that 42% of the portfolio companies in that fund are led by female CEOs.
Female Founders Forum was launched last year at Slush. In this forum we discuss topics that are specifically relevant to female founders.
Last year, we discussed fundraising and overcoming biases in venture capital. This year, we will focus on balancing the demands of entrepreneurship with personal life, including family, mental health, and self-care. This theme has been a recurring focus at Spintop’s events, reflecting our commitment to supporting founders holistically. While this forum is tailored for female founders, we acknowledge that these challenges are universal to all entrepreneurs, regardless of gender.
Join us for a session where we’ll share our best advice, and insights from the remarkable women we have supported, and invite you to network with us and other female founders.
500 Global – Early-stage Acceleration and Fundraising for Founders
Join Pedro Santos Vieira, Partner at 500 Global, as he shares key insights and tools that every founder needs to know around scaling quickly and fundraising effectively. In this session, expect takeaways on best practices for founders; from accelerating product-market fit and go-to-market, to securing investor meetings and fundraising in a bear market.
Pedro also leads the 500 Global Accelerator Program in Eurasia that takes place twice a year and will gladly share a tip or two on how to ace your investor interview. Join us for an afternoon of conversations around early-stage startup growth and get a glimpse of what it means to be #500Strong.
Registration opens soon!
Speedinvest – Building New Software for Old Companies: Enterprise GTM Learnings for the AI age
Fred Hagenauer, SaaS & Infra Partner at Speedinvest sits down with three intrepid operators of European tech: Adil (CEO & Founder autone), Pietro (CTO & Founder Board International), and Marc (Global Startups GTM Lead OpenAI) will share their learnings on what fast-growing software companies need to get right to sell to Europe’s largest and most iconic businesses.
You will leave this session with tangible lessons learned around how to navigate go-to-market in an ever-changing tech landscape, how to make decisions around GTM in Europe vs the US and what pitfalls to avoid when scaling your software company.
Point72 Ventures – Lessons Learned: From Research to Commercialization
In a post-LLM world, the most sought-after founders are often coming from research groups (e.g. OpenAI, DeepMind, FAIR) or directly from Academia. This presents both exciting opportunities and challenges. We want to explore the journey that research-first founders have faced – how they’ve been able to turn their technology into a competitive differentiator while bridging the business-skills gap and building expertise in product, GTM, and team building.
Speakers:
- Tara Stokes, AI Partner, Point72 Ventures
- Adam Liska, CEO and Co-Founder of Glyphic
- Nikola Mrkšić, CEO and Co-Founder of PolyAI
We will have a 30 min panel, followed by a networking breakfast.
LocalGlobe – Ask Me Anything with LocalGlobe
Please join us for a must-attend event with five LocalGlobe partners. Our discussion will focus on the journey from seed funding to raising a Series A round. We’re creating an interactive format to allow founders to have deep and useful discussions with our experienced investors. We want founders to take home valuable insights they can apply to their businesses and meet people who will genuinely be useful to them. We want to hear the questions you’ve always wanted to ask of investors. Nothing too big or too small. We’ve seen a lot in our time and we’re creating a safe place to share our insights with our Slush friends. Following the audience Q&A, we’ll break out into smaller groups for an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session. Join us for this exclusive event to learn more about the fundraising landscape right now and strategies for successful growth.
Inventure x 3VC x Practica Capital – Lunch: Media Best Practices
How should you leverage the press? Hear from startup journalists on what works, what doesn’t work, and the stories they’re looking for.
Join this Investor Office Hours session followed by lunch hosted by 3VC, Practica, and Inventure.
node.vc – No BS War Stories by node.vc
Join us for a raw and honest session, “No BS War Stories”, where our partners and friends of the fund share their real-life experiences as entrepreneurs and operators before becoming VCs. This is your chance to get an inside look into the operational challenges and successes we’ve faced along the way, and hear about the mistakes we would have avoided knowing what we know now. Through lightning talks, our team will cover topics like:
- The innovation process
- Navigating patents
- Building strong company culture and communities
- Fundraising tactics
- Exiting companies successfully
After the lightning talks, we’ll break into smaller groups for interactive Q&A sessions and coaching. It’s a unique opportunity to get actionable advice and insights from those who’ve been in the trenches. No fluff, just straight-to-the-point learnings that you can apply to your own entrepreneurial journey. Plus, we’ll have sugary snacks and coffee to keep the energy going!
500 Global – Emerging Europe: Global Success Rooted in Local Talent
This panel will explore how Emerging Europe produces global startup success stories by highlighting key examples of companies over generations. We’ll dive into the region’s growing global footprint, emphasizing the technical talent and innovation fueling its rise as a tech powerhouse. By examining the ecosystems in countries like Poland, Romania, the Baltics, and Türkiye, we’ll discuss how local founders leverage these strengths to compete on the world stage. The panel will also address the opportunities and challenges faced by entrepreneurs and investors working to shape Emerging Europe’s place in the global tech landscape.
TIMELINE
DAY 1
10:30 AM–11:45 AM Playfair Capital
10:45 AM–12 PM Antler
12:30 PM–1:45 PM Index Ventures
2:15 PM–3:30 PM Spintop Ventures
2:45 PM–4 PM 500 Global
4:30 PM–5:45 PM Speedinvest
DAY 2
10AM – 11:15 AM Point72 Ventures
10:15 AM – 11:30 AM LocalGlobe
11:45 AM – 1 PM Inventure x 3VC x Practica Capital
12:00 PM – 1:15 PM Index Ventures
1:30 PM – 2:45 PM node.vc
1:45 PM – 3 PM Index Ventures
3:15 PM – 4:30 PM Coming soon
3:30 PM – 4:45 PM 500 Global
FAQ
Where will Investor Office Hours take place?
The Investor Office Hour session will take place at the main event inside a dedicated private venue. This year we have two Investor Office Hours venues at Messukeskus (IOH Venue 1 and 2).
Why can't everyone join the sessions?
The session program is tailored for specific audiences, and due to the sessions being held at a private venue, there is a maximum limit on the number of guests who can be invited.
How can I join the sessions?
Among the sessions, there are those that operate on an invitation basis, while others welcome open applications for participation. You can submit your application to participate in sessions that feature the green “Apply to join the session” button. The audience is carefully selected from among the applicants, and those selected will receive email notifications.
I got invited to a session but can't come.
If you receive an invitation but are unable to attend the session, kindly reach out to [email protected]. This will allow us to offer the spot to someone eager to participate.
COME VISIT
Malminkatu 16 00100 Helsinki