Join Startupfest founder Phil Telio and content chair Alistair Croll as they kick off our 16th edition with a no-nonsense, insider's guide to what you need to do to get the most out of the next 3 days! See More.

What does it actually take to build a women's health company in Canada? Marina joins the hosts of Tech Poutine to trace her journey from founding idea to funded company: the fundraising walls she ran into, the clinical partnerships she had to forge from scratch, and why she believes Canada has a real edge in this space See More.

We live in exponential times. All meaningful growth comes from compounding: a constant, gradual, inexorable bending of the curve in your favour. If you want to ride the curve rather than being crushed by it, you need to start thinking in loops. See More.

Details coming soon. See More.

Holy shit - AI. See More.

We heard you when you said you love the chance at honest, intimate conversations with people that can make a difference to your companies, so Mentor Office Hours are back! Pick a theme and drop in to get your most pressing questions answered! See More.

The Startup Showcase is where the art of the pitch takes center stage - literally. With the help of our partners, hand-selected entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to showcase their startup. See More.

One of the immutable laws of the universe is that startups fail more often than they succeed. This sounds depressing, but there’s a hopeful message in here. Promise. See More.

Trust has always been the bedrock of doing business. The unspoken agreement underneath every handshake, every transaction, every promise kept. In an AI-enabled synthetic world, it becomes the whole game. See More.

Got an announcement? Now's your chance to take the stage. No schedule, no slides, just you and a microphone! Get in line - you've got a max of 5 minutes! See More.

We heard you when you said you love the chance at honest, intimate conversations with people that can make a difference to your companies, so Mentor Office Hours are back! Pick a theme and drop in to get your most pressing questions answered! See More.

A short welcome to kick off FundFest and set the tone for the afternoon. See More.

Despite a challenging fundraising and exit environment, a new generation of venture managers continues to launch funds and back ambitious founders. This discussion explores how emerging managers are navigating the current market, differentiating their strategies, and building durable firms. See More.

You need to tell people what you're building, but nobody wants to hear a pitch at a networking event. This session breaks down how to show up at conferences like Startupfest without being the person everyone avoids—how to tell your story in a way that makes people actually interested, how to ask questions that open doors instead of close them, and how to turn a conversation into a connection without making it transactional. You'll See More.

Find out how to build the team that gets the "yes" from co-founders and from investors. See More.

We heard you when you said you love the chance at honest, intimate conversations with people that can make a difference to your companies, so Mentor Office Hours are back! Pick a theme and drop in to get your most pressing questions answered! See More.

Frontier technologies such as artificial intelligence and advanced computing are reshaping industries and creating new investment opportunities. In this session, emerging managers focused on frontier innovation will discuss how they evaluate technical breakthroughs, build conviction in deep technology sectors, and support founders operating at the cutting edge. See More.

In the earliest days of a startup, founders are often told the same thing: hire great people. But the real question comes earlier. When should a founder hire at all? See More.

The Startup Showcase is where the art of the pitch takes center stage - literally. With the help of our partners, hand-selected entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to showcase their startup. See More.

Participants will break into small moderated groups for interactive discussions on topics shaping the future of venture capital. Each roundtable will focus on a practical theme, allowing attendees to exchange perspectives, share experiences, and discuss actionable strategies with fellow managers, LPs, and ecosystem leaders. See More.

Most startup literature focuses on what Product-Market Fit (PMF) feels like and how to label it, leaving founders without a tactical guide on how to actually get there. See More.

Join Neil Grunberg as he shares how his biggest screw ups have shaped his success in this lightning keynote! See More.

We heard you when you said you love the chance at honest, intimate conversations with people that can make a difference to your companies, so Mentor Office Hours are back! Pick a theme and drop in to get your most pressing questions answered! See More.

Join Neil Grunberg as he moderates the beloved Startupfest founder panel. We ditch the glossy pitch decks and share what building a startup actually looks like—the midnight meltdowns, the money mistakes, the co-founder breakups, and the pivots born from desperation rather than strategy. See More.

A short wrap-up highlighting key takeaways from the day. See More.

What does it mean to build and invest for impact in 2026? We open ImpactFest with a moment to set the stage — why this community exists, what's at stake, and why the most exciting chapter for impact in Canada is just beginning. See More.

Canadian impact ventures have proven they can create real change at home. But what does it take to scale that change across borders? See More.

This panel brings allocators and operators together to unpack how the best founder-funder partnerships get built, where impact and blended capital unlock the rest of the stack, and how founders can tell a capital story that resonates across investors. See More.

Join us as we kick off day 2 and make sure you're up to date on what's going on on site today! See More.

The Startup Showcase is where the art of the pitch takes center stage - literally. With the help of our partners, hand-selected entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to showcase their startup. See More.

Startups always compete on product, capital and execution. But they also compete on clarity, trust and recognizability. In a world flooded with AI-generated content, founder templates, growth hacks and algorithmic sameness, many companies are starting to sound interchangeable. The result is a new challenge for modern founders: how do you build visibility and authority without becoming performative, synthetic or painfully generic? See More.

The Canadian impact ecosystem is on the right track, but honesty requires that we name what is holding it back. This keynote doesn't pull punches: it takes an honest look at the gaps, the missed opportunities, and the bold moves our ecosystem needs to make to compete and lead on the global stage. See More.

You've seen the stories: A founder has decent traction, a solid product, great experience, and they still can't close their fundraising round. Maybe you ARE that founder who's done everything ""right"" yet you still can't close. So, what does it actually take to get investors to say 'yes'? See More.

We heard you when you said you love the chance at honest, intimate conversations with people that can make a difference to your companies, so Mentor Office Hours are back! Pick a theme and drop in to get your most pressing questions answered! See More.

Founders at different inflection points share the unfiltered truth about momentum, doubt, capital, and the mission that drives their actions. See More.

This talk is not about meditation retreats. It's about tactical, repeatable systems that real people with demanding jobs, busy lives, working 996 can actually use. See More.

What makes a company defensible and valuable? How do you start building toward that from day one? See More.

A moment to celebrate what was built in the room today, the conversations started, the connections made, and the ideas that won't let go. See you at lunch! See More.

This session talks about recognizing your own limitations as a founder, the reality of when exits don't look like what you imagined and the strategic power of handing over the keys to people you trust so you can stay on the bus. See More.

Got an announcement? Now's your chance to take the stage. No schedule, no slides, just you and a microphone! Get in line - you've got a max of 5 minutes! See More.

Join Startupfest Content Chair Alistair Croll as he kicks off AIFest, a half day deep-dive that goes beyond the hype and looks at how AI agents are fundamentally changing the cost of software, the reality of customer retention, and the fundamentals of tech entrepreneurship. See More.

We heard you when you said you love the chance at honest, intimate conversations with people that can make a difference to your companies, so Mentor Office Hours are back! Pick a theme and drop in to get your most pressing questions answered! See More.

Harper Reed shares what a year of running a team on ~100% AI-generated code has taught him about workflows, guardrails, org design, and the choice every leader is about to face. See More.

Building a data room used to require either expensive advisors or a founder with an investment banking or consulting pedigree. In this talk, Fatima draws on her background in both to break down what actually matters in pre-seed and seed fundraising documents — from market sizing to financial models to sensitivity tables. See More.

Cooperathon 2026, Presented by Desjardins The Cooperathon 2026 Finals are where the entrepreneurial community gathers to witness the next generation of impact startups. We’re celebrating ten years of shaking up the ecosystem with pitches, major awards, and a festive look at how Quebec is building a solid future through innovation.

The Startup Showcase is where the art of the pitch takes center stage - literally. With the help of our partners, hand-selected entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to showcase their startup. See More.

In this talk, we will explore why the leaders who win in the AI era will be those who slow down to think deeply about the problems they are solving, design the right experiments, and cut through the noise to guide their organizations toward meaningful outcomes. See More.

We heard you when you said you love the chance at honest, intimate conversations with people that can make a difference to your companies, so Mentor Office Hours are back! Pick a theme and drop in to get your most pressing questions answered! See More.

In this session, Morgan Willis will walk through what it takes to build AI agents you can trust in production. She'll walk through a layered approach that combines input validation, output filtering, LLM-as-judge steering, and action approval—the layers you need to turn a vibe-coded experiment into actual infrastructure. See More.

Join Startupfest chair and bestselling author Alistair Croll for a two-hour dive into the world of AI-augmented startups. It's a two-hour, interactive discussion on what's working, what's changing, and where entrepreneurship is headed with a second intelligence joining the team. See More.

Founders, turn the tables! This high-density, 5-minute reverse pitch format compels accelerators to answer the most critical questions you need for decision-making. See More.

We heard you when you said you love the chance at honest, intimate conversations with people that can make a difference to your companies, so Mentor Office Hours are back! Pick a theme and drop in to get your most pressing questions answered! See More.

The Betakit Podcast - Live

Welcome to CorpoFest

Innovation is often perceived as complex or out of reach, yet it can start with something much simpler: improving a process, rethinking a challenge, or making more informed decisions. The challenge is rarely the lack of ideas — it is knowing where to begin without transforming everything at once. See More.

Four entrepreneurs will showcase how their technology solutions address some of the most common productivity challenges faced by businesses today. See More.

Building on the cases presented in the previous segment, attendees will continue the conversation with Québec technology solution providers selected by Québec Tech’s technology adoption team. See More.

Today is all about the prize finals! Join Alistair as he kicks off the third and final day of Startupfest 2026! See More.

Come and cheer on the finalists vying for the $100K Impact Investment Prize. See More.

Les Dérangeants - Live

Come and cheer on the finalists vying for the $100K Best of the Fest Investment Prize. See More.

Come and cheer on the finalists vying for the $100K Black Entrepreneur Investment Prize. See More.

Come and cheer on the finalists vying for the $100K 2SLGBTQIA+ Investment Prize. See More.

Come and cheer on the finalists vying for the $100K Women in Tech Investment Prize. See More.

Startups have been pitching for all of our amazing prizes over the last three days. Come and find out who's taking home the trophies and get your vote in for our Audience Choice Award! See More.