The name has retained something good-natured, a barbecue, between neighbors, to talk about startups. Thirteen years later, more than 10,000 people will converge on the Bella Center in Copenhagen, including 4,000 founders and operators and nearly 2,000 investors from more than 90 countries. The name has not changed unlike the scale.
The 2026 edition of TECH BBQ, on August 26 and 27, tells precisely this coming of age: Artificial intelligence, quantum, semiconductors, drug discovery, new materials, climate technologies, defense: the program sweeps wide, but one question runs through it from start to finish, how to transform recognized scientific excellence into companies capable of going the distance against the United States and China?
This is where the Nordic story joins that of all European deeptech. The laboratories exist, the engineers are excellent. The difficulties begin afterwards: financing ten years of development, building a factory, landing a first major client, raising several hundred million euros without the company’s center of gravity shifting towards the United States. In Copenhagen, startups, sovereign funds, universities, private foundations and political leaders will therefore work to put the pieces of this puzzle together, knowing that in this long time, every minute counts as the competition is so fast.
Voices that embody each part of the program
The cast of speakers gives substance to this ambition, Meredith Whittaker, president of Signal and critical figure of the concentration of technological power, will bring particular depth to the debates. Jacob Lauritzen, technical director of Legora, will illustrate the rise of AI agents applied to law. Dylan Fox, founder of AssemblyAI, will speak on voice models, while James Hawkins (PostHog) and Sabba Keynejad (Veed) will look at European companies that have built software platforms with international reach.
The most directly deeptech part will take place on August 26, with a day dedicated to the convergences between artificial intelligence, quantum computing and life sciences: 45 European startups selected in human health, planetary health and advanced technologies. Among the expected interventions, that of Max Welling, co-founder of CuspAI, recognized researcher in machine learning and former vice-president of technology at Qualcomm, now focused on generative AI applied to the discovery of new materials.
The program doesn’t stop at software and semiconductors. Pasi Vainikka, co-founder of Solar Foods, embodies another dimension of Nordic deeptech: that which transforms scientific work into an industrial tool. His Finnish company produces a protein, Solein, from microorganisms fed on carbon dioxide, hydrogen and electricity.
Patient capital is still seeking its instructions for use
Everything will actually start on August 25, unofficially, with an Investor Day at the Maersk Tower, in the heart of the Innovation District Copenhagen. Around 800 representatives of venture capital funds, corporate venture funds, family offices and business angel networks are expected.
This district is not just a place of passage: it brings together 40,000 researchers, students and employees, and already claims the creation of 500 startups resulting from research. Above all, it brings investors together with technology transfer structures, DTU Skylab, KU Lighthouse, Beta.Health, Quantum Denmark, the BioInnovation Institute, and it is precisely this proximity that distinguishes the Nordic model. Universities work alongside public funds such as EIFO, the Danish sovereign wealth fund, but also private foundations with considerable resources, such as the Novo Nordisk Foundation and the Lundbeck Foundation.
These foundations occupy a special place in the European landscape. They finance fundamental research, scientific infrastructures, support programs, and intervene, directly or indirectly, in the creation of businesses, over time horizons that traditional venture capital struggles to cover.
The return of the State to the technological conversation
On August 27, a Policy Stage will bring together entrepreneurs, investors, European officials and representatives of Nordic governments: Karen Ellemann (Secretary General of the Nordic Council of Ministers), Sigrid Rajalo (Estonian Ministry of Economy), Daragh Brown (European Investment Fund), Susanne Eskildsen (EIFO), several Danish and European parliamentarians, and Louise Lund Henneberg, deputy director of the “Techplomacy” department of the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Denmark having been one of the first countries to officially treat technology as a diplomatic subject, in the same way as trade, security or energy.
The debates promise to be concrete: a possible Nordic fund of funds, the investment of pension funds in tech, the taxation of startups, the attraction of talent, and the European “28th regime” project, intended to offer innovative companies a common legal framework beyond the 27 national systems.
India and Africa as growth drivers
For countries whose national markets remain small, internationalization is not a late option: it is part of the original model. Following on from Vivatech, TechBBQ is organizing a Nordic–India Startup Summit dedicated to the complementarities between Nordic innovation and Indian capabilities in talent, industrial production, digital infrastructure and market access. A second program, the Nordic–Africa Startup Summit, brings together Nordic and African ecosystems around health, agritech, climate and artificial intelligence.
Why TechBBQ is worth the trip
TechBBQ is not a specialized deeptech show like Hello Tomorrow: its program combines artificial intelligence, SaaS, fintech, climate, life sciences, public policies and growth advice. For an entrepreneur or an investor, it is an opportunity to meet not only venture capital funds, but also universities, foundations, sovereign funds and European institutions. For a public actor, this is a concrete overview of how the Nordic countries try to coordinate research, financing and industrial policy.
For a French observer, especially, TechBBQ shifts the gaze. The Nordic model is based on the density of relationships between heterogeneous actors. The event also remains less saturated by the media than Vivatech or Slush, discussions are more accessible, provided you prepare your meetings in advance. In these times, remember to secure your travel in terms of cybersecurity.
