How did Web Summit grow from a few hundred people to 71,386 attendees?

How did Web Summit grow from a few hundred people to 71,386 attendees?

Web Summit started in Dublin in 2009 as a gathering of somewhere between 150 and 400 people. By 2025, its tenth Lisbon edition, it counted 71,386 attendees from 157 countries, a record 1,857 investors and 2,725 exhibiting startups. The company behind it reported more than €100 million in revenue that year.

What does the timeline look like in figures?

The founding size is disputed. The Irish Times put it at 150; other accounts say about 400. Either way, it began as a modest meetup with a pub crawl.

How fast did attendance grow in Dublin?

The Dublin years ran from 2009 to 2015, and the curve steepened toward the end.

• 2011: the move to the RDS, with YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and WordPress creator Matt Mullenweg among the speakers.
• 2015: ahead of the final Dublin edition, the Irish government expected about 30,000 attendees, 2,000 startups, 1,000 investors and 650 speakers.
• Four-year jump: when the 2015 event opened, Portuguese newspaper Observador reported growth from 400 to 42,000 participants in four years.

Growth at that pace created friction. The organisers and the Irish government publicly disagreed over hotel capacity, transport and infrastructure, and in September 2015 Cosgrave announced the event would leave.

What did the Lisbon contracts commit?

Lisbon's pitch was physical: a large indoor arena next to the FIL exhibition and congress centre, served by one transport hub at Oriente station. The first Lisbon edition in November 2016 drew more than 53,000 attendees, and Portuguese prime minister António Costa joined Cosgrave on stage at the opening.

What is Web Summit worth to Lisbon and to its owner?

The €300 million estimate, from Portuguese business press, covers hotel stays, restaurants, shops and other spending. The revenue figure was reported by Essential Business and spans a company that now runs Web Summit Rio, Web Summit Qatar (launched 2024), Web Summit Vancouver (which replaced Collision in 2025) and RISE in Asia alongside Lisbon.

How do the last two editions compare?

Headcount has levelled off at just over 71,000, while the mix has shifted: more countries, and a 74% rise in investors. In 2025, 40% of exhibiting startups had a woman among their founders, and AI and machine learning was the largest startup category.

The 2024 rebound came after a hard year. In October 2023, Cosgrave's social media comments on the Israel-Hamas war triggered withdrawals including Google, Meta, Amazon and Intel. He resigned, Katherine Maher led the 2023 edition, and he returned as CEO in April 2024. By the 2024 edition, Meta and IBM were sponsors again.

What do attendees raise afterwards?

The 2025 Web Summit x Crunchbase report followed 2024 attendees for a year:

• Nearly 200 startups from the startup programme raised $715.5 million
• AI and machine learning startups raised $334.6 million, up 360%
• All attending companies, including speakers and partners, raised $128.8 billion
• PITCH winners have raised a combined $1.5 billion since 2013, with 2018 winner Wayve the best-known example

How has the main-stage agenda tracked AI?

The topic list works as a rough index of where technology attention sits:

• 2017: Stephen Hawking told Opening Night AI could be the best or worst thing to happen to humanity (Fortune). Sophia, Hanson Robotics' humanoid robot, appeared the same year.
• 2025: AI and machine learning was the single largest category of exhibiting startups.
• 2026: the AI Summit track covers whether AI agents are ready for real organisations, whether AI's return justifies its cost, and how open and closed models will compete.

For a fuller narrative of the Dublin-to-Lisbon story, see the full guide on MarkGrid. MarkGrid is exhibiting at the 2026 edition; its booth briefing has the details, and the Web Summit 2026 Lisbon guide covers tickets and travel. Background on the company's history is also on Wikipedia.