Ascent Valley
Pitch

Startup networking events, city by city.

One format an evening, a room small enough to finish a conversation, and every guest checked in against the list at the door. Pick a city, pick a date.

evenings ahead
31evenings ahead
cities
17cities
countries
13countries

Next in the US

San Francisco

Wed, Oct 21 · 7:00 PM PDT

Rick & Roxy's

18 evenings in the USBrowse by city
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Evenings that match

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Clear the filters to see all 31 upcoming evenings, or pick a city below.

Pick your city

Every city has its own hub.

17 of 29 cities have an evening on the calendar, across 13countries. The hub holds that city's dates, its past evenings and its community door.

The formats

One date, one evening. Two kinds of it.

Both run the same way: a table on a topic the room voted for, five minutes each on stage, then an open hour. What changes is who is in the room.

Five founders, five minutes31 upcoming

Startup Pitch: 5 Founders on Stage

Five founders, five minutes each, then the room asks. A table on a topic the room voted for, and the hour after the stage, which is the one people remember.

How the evening runs

  1. 01You arrive, put on a name sticker and take a table on a topic the room voted for. You stay there for the hour instead of doing a lap looking for a gap in someone else's conversation.
  2. 02Five founders take the stage, five minutes each. No slides read out loud. Then the room asks, and the questions are the good part.
  3. 03The stage ends and the floor stays open for an hour. Nobody is performing any more; that is the hour people actually remember.
  4. 04The stage is by application, read by a person. The audience needs only a ticket.

What you leave with

  • The question you have been quietly avoiding, asked out loud to somebody else, and a look at how they handled it.
  • A link that keeps working after the night: who else came, a chat for this evening and a recap of who you met.
  • If you pitched: a profile in our startup directory, read by a person, in front of the funds and angels in the network.

Who it is for

Anyone building something, from the first line of code to Series A, and the people who run a function at a company that is scaling, write the code, do the hiring, or are still deciding whether to start.

Why it is worth itWatching somebody explain their company in five minutes teaches you more about explaining yours than another evening alone with the deck.

See 31 upcoming datesNext: San Francisco · Wed, Oct 21How the stage works

Builders, stack & productNo dates right now

AI & Tech Networking

For the people building with AI and technology: tables by stack and problem, five builders on stage for five minutes each, then an open hour.

How the evening runs

  1. 01You arrive and take a table by what you are building with: agents, infrastructure, data, developer tools, hardware. Topics are voted before the night.
  2. 02Five builders take the stage for five minutes each: what it does, how it is built, what is in the way. The room asks the technical questions.
  3. 03Then the floor stays open for an hour, and the conversations that started at the tables finish.
  4. 04The stage is by application, read by a person. The audience needs only a ticket.

What you leave with

  • The people in your city working on the same class of problem.
  • Which stack decisions other teams regret, heard before you make them.
  • A shortlist for a hire, a co-founder search or a second opinion on your architecture.

Who it is for

Engineers, technical founders, ML and data people, product managers, and founders looking for their technical half. Built for the people writing the code and shipping the product.

Why it is worth itMost tech meetups are a talk with networking bolted on the end. This one is the other way round.

See all upcoming eveningsHow the stage works

A separate eveningNo dates right now

Founder Table

A smaller founder gathering for a focused conversation around the table.

How the evening runs

  1. 01Everyone arrives with one thing that is actually blocking them, stated in a sentence.
  2. 02The table works through them in turn, by a protocol, once a month.
  3. 03Deliberately small, so each bottleneck gets real time.

What you leave with

  • Next steps on your own bottleneck.
  • The two people at the table who can help with them.

Who it is for

Eight founders at the same stage around one table, by application after your first evening with us.

Why it is worth itA working table, not a talk. You get to it by coming to the first room.

See all upcoming eveningsHow the stage works

Met in person, approved on application, checked at the door: three different checks. None of them is a rating.

Community layerIn beta

The network doesn't end when you leave the room.

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.

Ascent ValleySan FranciscoMember directorybeta
Coming on WednesdaySan Francisco · sorted by shared tags
fintech, hiring, co-founder
FintechAIHiringCo-founderSeedOperators
Founder · AI infra · pre-seed#AI#HiringComing Wed
Operator · growth, ex-Series B#GTM#B2BComing Wed
Investor · seed, B2B software#Seed#SaaSApproved
Founder · fintech · MVP#Fintech#Co-founderComing Wed
SlackWebTelegramThree doors, one room

What the app looks like. Rows are roles, not people; nothing here is a count.

01
Join with your ticket

The invitation to your city's community arrives right after you buy.

02
Your profile goes live

Set your tags and what you are looking for before the night.

03
Get matched

Local, Across or Global: the app surfaces the right people and keeps the thread going.

Join in SlackAlso on the web and Telegram. Free, in beta. Best after you have been to an evening.
For investors

Can't make it to a city? Get the digest.

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 investor

Before you book

What people ask before their first evening.

Do I need a startup to attend?

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.

How to use the evening, role by role

Who will I actually meet?

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.

Five checks before you give up an evening

How do you know who is actually in the room?

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.

Can I pitch my startup?

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.

How the five seats are filled

Will investors be there?

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.

How do I register, and where is my ticket?

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.

How much does it cost?

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.

What a ticket buys, and what it doesn't

What happens after the evening?

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.

I am new in the city. Is this for me?

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.

Which room fits your ask

Want to present? How pitching works. Investing? How introductions work.

Host an event with us

Partner with us to co-host a city event, demo day or private dinner.

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