Eight people came to the cinema. For founders preparing to pitch their companies, this was an awkward ratio of ambition to audience. TECHARENA’s first final, held in a rented movie theatre in Båstad, had the apparatus of an occasion and rather little occasion. Then, the next day, about 100 people turned up for a smaller gathering. They talked. They exchanged contacts. The part that looked like an accessory began to look like the business.
- The offer: events, pitch competitions and programs that connect founders with investors, buyers and policymakers.
- The bet: a useful conversation can justify the journey better than a famous face onstage.
- The practical move: arrive with specific people to meet and something specific to ask.
Co-founder and CEO Omid Ekhlasi tells that origin story as a discovery about proximity. His background included journalism, marketing and work with companies commercializing research. He had seen the difficulty of taking an invention into the market. A good idea needed an audience, certainly. More urgently, it needed somebody willing to do something with it.
The product was hiding in the interval
Ekhlasi and co-founder Tommy Fondelius began in 2014. The competition became a broader platform: conferences, investor introductions, international delegations, a news publication and fundraising support. The flagship now occupies Strawberry Arena in the Stockholm area. A stadium offers room for spectacle; TECHARENA also fills it with the less photogenic infrastructure of business: tables, booked appointments and places to continue talking.
There is a useful distinction here. Watching a successful entrepreneur can supply motivation. Meeting a prospective customer can supply a next step. TECHARENA arranges both, but the second explains why founders, corporate executives, venture investors and policymakers belong together. Each controls something the others need: a product, a purchasing budget, capital or the rules under which a business operates.
Its competitive neighbourhood includes Slush in Helsinki and TechBBQ in Copenhagen, both of which Ekhlasi has cited as inspiration. TECHARENA’s particular offer combines entry into Sweden’s corporate and policy circles with startup competitions and continuing programs. For an overseas founder seeking Nordic buyers or partners, that geography is part of the product.
A pitch, a ferry ticket, a warmer introduction
The company has several doors into this network. TOP46 selects 46 startups to pitch at the arena event, with media exposure, investor introductions and networking. Its published winners include Legora in 2024, Vesiro in 2025 and Epiminds in 2026. Applying currently requires no ticket purchase. Winning attention is useful; it still leaves the work of converting interest into a relationship.
Techarena Challenge offers another route. The Nordic entrepreneurship competition brings its finalists to Almedalen, Sweden’s political gathering on Gotland. Its package includes exhibition space, accommodation in a Founders Village, ferry travel and networking. These are remarkably practical details. Access becomes easier to use when someone has also solved the problem of getting you onto the island.
In August 2024, TECHARENA acquired Time to Raise, a fundraising accelerator supporting female-led startups from pre-seed to Series A. Its autumn 2024 cohort used an eight-week format with mentorship and investor access. The spring 2025 cohort added ten companies from Sweden, Britain and Iceland. This extends the company’s work beyond a stage appearance into preparation for the conversation that follows.
“Our platform continues to scale with the ecosystem.”Omid Ekhlasi, CEO, in a 2025 interview
Investors can use the platform to discover companies and meet peers; corporate teams can arrange side events around a narrower business question. International delegations bring whole networks into the same setting. The expertise sits in assembling these groups and giving them workable formats. A startup with a ready demonstration and a clear target market has more to do here than one still deciding what it sells.
The room has a price
TECHARENA sells passes, exhibition opportunities and corporate partnerships. Sponsors can buy booths, branded areas, lounges and hosted roundtables; yearly partnerships extend across events and communications. Its corporate proposition is straightforward: meet potential clients, see emerging products and put your expertise in front of an audience likely to care.
At the October 2026 research snapshot, the 2027 ticket pages displayed VAT-inclusive promotional prices of €157 for startup access and €364 for investor access. These are changing offers, rather than permanent tariffs. The startup subsidy also has conditions: a scalable product or service, fewer than 150 employees and a company less than 12 years old. Agencies and consultancies do not qualify.
The business has attracted capital of its own. BackingMinds invested SEK 12 million in June 2025 to support international expansion. Breakit reported 2024 revenue of SEK 43 million, following SEK 16.3 million in 2023. Those figures describe a growing operation. They do not tell an attendee whether a particular meeting will be worth the airfare.
Founder-reported figures for the February 2026 event. Meetings count activity, rather than completed deals.
Someone still has to make the microphones work
Networking may sound delightfully spontaneous. Producing the conditions for it is stubbornly operational. In a public account, Ekhlasi described an earlier event where the sound and screens failed. The response was to hire external technicians. Sweden Eventcenter first handled sound, then stages, then wider production. The failure changed who did the work.
The relationship mattered in 2023. According to Ekhlasi, delays meant the team entered Stockholm Waterfront at 10pm, with doors due to open for 4,000 participants at 8am. The production partner built stages, exhibition areas and meeting zones overnight. In 2026, TECHARENA announced three-year strategic agreements with Sweden Eventcenter and Able Productions, whose work includes exhibition logistics and construction.
Give the ticket a job
The transferable lesson begins before registration. Name the customer, investor or partner you need; prepare a short explanation of the problem you solve; book relevant meetings; leave room for follow-up. That is an editorial reading of TECHARENA’s format, not a promised result. A crowded arena cannot repair an unclear offer or make an unsuitable investor suitable.
Ekhlasi’s post-event account of 2026 emphasized nationalities, meetings and community engagement. It is a sensible shift in attention: count whether people interact, then investigate what those interactions produce. The next flagship is scheduled for February 3-4, 2027. The company’s oldest insight remains useful at any scale. When the pitch finishes, somebody should have a reason to stay.