Startups attending Slush are 3.5 times likelier to raise funding
Slush was founded in 2008 to increase startups' access to capital. The first ever edition of Slush Impact report series finds that startups attending Slush raise more, from better investors, and grow faster than European peers. Slush startups are 3.5 times more likely to raise funding after attending Slush compared to other European startups. They’re also 7 times likelier to raise from global top 0.1% VCs. Conducted as a quantitative cohort study, the report tracked 2,100 European startups that attended Slush for the first time in the years 2022, 2023, or 2024 against a matched benchmark of 230,000 European peers.
“Slush exists to help and create founders to change the world. The findings from Slush Impact report make us feel humble seeing the mission come to life. This is something we as the European ecosystem have built together in the past 20 years,” says Noora Saksa, 26, Slush CEO.
Slush is application-only for both startups and investors to ensure relevancy over scale for the audience. The startups attending consistently outperform their European peers across every metric measured: fundraising rate, investor quality, stage progression, and growth. Slush doesn't just attract the world's most ambitious founders but functions as a signal for current and future success. This is evident from Slush's stage program; for example Bolt, Oura, Lovable and Legora have all pitched on stage as early-stage startups at the beginning of their journey.
Bigger, better and more frequent investment rounds
By default, investors hold the power in the ecosystem. At Slush, the scale tips closer to the founders end. This is the ethos that Slush has been built with.
“Slush has a one-to-one startup-investor ratio; for every startup company attending, we have one VC investor. This makes the odds of fundraising stacked in founders' favor. Funding remains the main bottleneck for startups, with nearly 60% noting it as their top struggle in Slush’s Startup Struggle survey from 2025 which is why our team is consistently doubling down on it,” Noora says.
Startups are 3.5 times likelier to raise after attending Slush. But funding frequency isn’t the only edge: it shows in deal size, quality of investors and company growth. Rounds raised by Slush startups are twice the size of completed median investment rounds and the companies behind them advance to the next funding stage at double the rate.
Slush startups raise from the world’s best investors
When it comes to fundraising, weight is put equally on the amount raised, valuation gained and the quality of VCs backing the round. Having one or multiple of the world’s top 0.1% on your cap table is a stamp of approval that likely opens doors. Startups attending Slush are 7 times likelier to gain an investment from the world’s top VCs compared to the European average.
However, attending Slush is not a guarantee of an investment. 6,000 startups and €4T AUM are brought under the same roof but founders still need to put in the work. Finnish open source data platform, Aiven, did just that.
“I’ve raised 400 million dollars of venture capital funding at Slush. This wouldn’t be possible in any other event,” Oskari Saarenmaa, co-founder and CEO of Aiven says.
Slush startups also have higher cross-border investor reach: US startups attending Slush are 8 times more likely to raise from a European investor than the US benchmark. For European startups that attended Slush, odds of getting a US investor on their cap table are 5 times likelier than their non-attending peers.
Highest conversion rate of any startup event
Slush is no longer just a highly curated event with a relevant audience but a signal for future success. While the Slush Impact report only implies correlation instead of causality, one thing is clear: Startups attending Slush consistently perform better across all three cohorts. Whether it’s startup's progression through stages of investment, headcount growth, investor frequency, quality, round size or grant allocation, Slush startups outperform the matched European benchmark on any metric measured.
“The Median startup attending Slush is 2 years old and has raised €0.3M funding at the time of attendance. Our event is designed to offer early stage founders the opportunity for life-changing connections and inspiration to show that the world’s best can and is being built from Europe,” Noora Saksa concludes.
Read the full report here.
Methodology: The study compares 2,108 European startups that attended Slush for the first time in 2022–2024 (founded 2016 or later) against a benchmark of ~230,000 non-attending European peers. Attendee data is sourced from Slush's CRM; investment and benchmark data from Dealroom.
The 2025 cohort is excluded as six months of post-event data is too short to capture rounds that will eventually appear.