Events
Summits, mixers, pitch nights and partner-led events across 13 countries. Pick a city. Drop in.
Co-founder matchingFor The Record · 🇺🇸 San Francisco
Find a partner by solving a real problem together, not by swapping decks. For San Francisco founders looking for a technical or commercial half.
Co-founder matchingFlorentín Rooftop Bar · 🇺🇸 Los Angeles
Find a partner by solving a real problem together, not by swapping decks. For Los Angeles founders looking for a technical or commercial half.
Co-founder matchingLock, Stock & Barrel · 🇦🇪 Dubai
Find a partner by solving a real problem together, not by swapping decks. For Dubai founders looking for a technical or commercial half.
The formats
Open a format to see how the evening runs, what you leave with and who it is for. Each one links to its upcoming dates.
Founders with something to show, pre-seed to seed. Investors and operators who want to hear an idea early and ask the hard question.
Why it is worth itYou have been workshopping the idea alone, or with a chatbot. This is the room that tells you what is actually wrong with it, and what is right.
Founders at any stage, investors who would rather meet a founder than read a deck, and operators who have done the job. The most open of the five formats.
Why it is worth itIt is the room where the other four formats begin: the people you meet here are the ones who pitch, invest and answer later.
Engineers, technical founders and product people. Built for the people writing the code and shipping the product, not only the commercial side of the table.
Why it is worth itMost technical meetups are a talk with networking bolted on the end. This one is the other way round.
Founders raising now, pre-seed to Series A, and investors who want to meet them in person before a deck arrives. Angels, scouts and syndicate leads most often.
Why it is worth itAn introduction that starts in a room lasts longer than one that starts in a subject line. Investor attendance on a given night is never guaranteed; the base and the digest work every week.
Founders looking for a technical or commercial half, and people who want to build but not alone.
Why it is worth itCo-founder speed dating does not work: you cannot tell how someone thinks from a two-minute introduction. So the evening is built around working on something instead.
Not yetFounder Table. Eight founders at the same stage around one table, by application after your first evening with us. First tables in October: Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Met in person, approved on application, checked at the door: three different checks. Neither is a rating.
Everyone you meet at an evening lands in the Ascent Valley app: checked in, searchable, and matched to you long after the night is over. Opens in Slack, your browser or Telegram. No new account.
What the app looks like. Rows are roles, not people; nothing here is a count.
The invitation to your city's community arrives right after you buy.
Set your tags and what you are looking for before the night.
Local, Across or Global: the app surfaces the right people and keeps the thread going.
Every city has its own hub. Local team, recurring formats, and a community that already shows up.
Every Monday, a digest of startups we met in person, put together by hand. Introductions are made by us, warm only, with no percentage of any deal.
Apply as an investorBefore you book
No. The room is built around founders, but investors and operators (product, engineering, marketing, people who have done the job) are who founders come to meet. Each format says who it is for, and the event page repeats it for that evening.
Founders from pre-seed to Series A, engineers and product people, operators who have done the job, and investors when the format is Investor Connect or a pitch night. Sectors are declared up front, so you know who you are talking to before you register.
Every guest is checked against a real profile when they register and checked in against the list at the door. It is a check, not a rating: it tells you the people you meet are who they say they are, nothing more.
At Pitch Nights and Investor Connect evenings, by application. A ticket lets you attend; a separate application, reviewed by a person, puts you on the list to present. Read how pitching works before you apply.
Sometimes, and we never promise it for a given night. Investors come to Investor Connect and to some pitch nights; they are approved on application and are not used as bait. Introductions to investors are made by us afterwards, through the Monday digest, and we take no percentage of any deal.
Open the event page and use its ticket button. It takes you to the platform that sells that evening, Eventbrite or Luma; your ticket and confirmation come from there, to the email you used. Right after the purchase you also get two emails from us: an invitation to our Luma calendar and an invitation to your city's community. Each evening is sold in one place only, and refunds follow that ticket page's terms.
Some evenings are free; most are paid. The price is on the event page and on the ticket page, in the local currency. A paid ticket is the filter that keeps the room small enough for conversations to finish.
You are in your city's community from the moment you buy the ticket: the invitation arrives with your purchase, and it opens in Slack, in the browser or in Telegram, three doors to one room. That is where the conversation continues and where the next date is announced. If you pitched, your startup enters our base with the evening and the date on record.
Yes. Most people in the room were new somewhere once. Come to a Mixer first: you write your role and your ask on your badge, and the hosts make the introductions.
Want to present? How pitching works. Investing? How introductions work.
Partner with us to co-host a city event, demo day or private dinner.
Become a host