Slush 2024 – Takeaways from Europe’s Premier Startup Conference

I was lucky enough to attend Slush last week, a conference aimed at startups and investors. It was my first time both in Helsinki and at Slush and it was certainly a unique experience – not just because of the high calibre of attendees from the startup and VC world but also the nightclub vibes of the conference itself. It begs the question – is it easier for founders to pitch VCs if they can’t quite make out their face?

I was on hand to support our client, SambaNova Systems, who was appearing on the Founder’s Stage on Wednesday morning. The day started off early with a live interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box, followed by an interview with Bloomberg before the on-stage appearance.

Backstage, no expense was spared.

There were two speaker lounges, a make-up station, and a full technical AV setup. For a student-run event the organisation was impeccable.

But it was the networking opportunities that really bring people to Slush.

From founders seeking investment to VCs seeking LPs for their latest fund, the focus was about having good conversations and expanding your horizons – and I certainly learned a lot.

Themes from Slush 2024

1. The evolution of AI – of course AI was a big topic, almost every startup in attendance had incorporated some level of intelligence into their offering, and it was a key driver of innovation amongst the startups.
2. Conversations around EU Inc. – there’s an increasing recognition that Europe has huge potential but regulation and red tape was adding friction to investments, especially outside the startup hubs. EU Inc. advocates for a unified pan-European startup entity to simplify operations – and it’s getting a big thumbs up from founders and VCs alike.
3. VCs were launching new investment funds, but are the LPs ready to bite? – after the doldrums of 2022/2023, there were signs of cautious optimism amongst attendees with VCs touting new funds and plenty of side events connecting VCs and LPs. But amongst those VCs investing, it was clear that deep tech including AI continues to be an area with huge growth potential and interest.

 Delving into AI

Attending with the Chief Technologist of SambaNova, we delved deep into the topic of AI during multiple conversations.

There was a reflection from journalists that two years after ChatGPT, the reality hasn’t yet lived up to the initial hype. Yes, the capabilities of LLMs are impressive but why hasn’t it revolutionised workflows yet?

The answer is that it’s coming, it just needs more work. The initial excitement was around zero-shot prompting - the ability of LLMs to tackle tasks they weren’t trained on - but this isn’t good enough for the types of complex tasks common in a business context.

The solution is coming in 2025, and it will be based around chain of thought prompting. This is where complex prompts are broken down into simpler steps. Expect to hear more around chain of thought, test-time compute, and agentic AI in the coming months.

Heading home from the conference – appropriately slushy underfoot after a snowstorm – the Slush conversations continued to happen - at the airport gate, and even on the flight home. While many other tech conferences are focused on sales, this one really is all about conversations.

As the banner said on the way in: “Great stories start with a chat, not a prompt."