Four days; 71,368 attendees; 157 countries; 1,857 investors; 2,725 startups; 869 speakers; and 1,519 publishers, CEOs, editors and reporters – including myself and my BusinessCloud colleague Patrick Killeen.
The numbers alone don’t do justice to the scale of Web Summit. It’s MASSIVE.
It sounds like a paradox but at times the event was both overwhelming and underwhelming.
Before I arrived, I accepted an invite to join a WhatsApp group of UK attendees – all 755 of them!
From Chelsea to Web Summit: Content creators take over the world
Imagine being in a room with 750+ strangers all updating you on who they are; who they’re looking forward to seeing; their travel plans; what they’re eating; the weather etc.
I think I tuned out when someone did a poll to find out what zodiac sign was most represented at the so-called ‘Olympics of Tech’. I’m a Taurus by the way!
Next year, I’m going to create an AI-powered app that can filter WhatsApp chats into contacts that are useful and then exhibit it on one of the stands.
However, it was a good introduction into the crazy, chaotic and fragmented world that is Web Summit.
If I’d got £1 for every time AI or AI agent was mentioned I could single-handedly settle Donald Trump’s $1bn lawsuit against the BBC – and still have change for a private jet.
The irony for me is that although Web Summit is a tech conference, it’s fundamentally all about people.
Why else would 70k+ people and speakers as diverse as Formula One boss Toto Wolff; five-time Grand Slam singles champion Maria Sharapova; Anton Osika, CEO of Europe’s fastest-growing AI startup Lovable; and TikTok sensation Khaby Lame, choose to attend?
AI aside, the recurring themes from the event were content creation and the power of storytelling. We’re all content creators in our way but it’s the power of our storytelling that will determine whether we’re successful.
Here are my 10 takeaways from the 2025 Web Summit in Lisbon:
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1. Is big always beautiful?
Web Summit is so big they have golf buggies to carry speakers from one stage to another.
I walked from the main stage in the MEO Arena to stage 15 to hear serial entrepreneur and podcaster Grace Beverley and realised I don’t travel that far for my holidays.
To get the best experience out of the Web Summit you have to plan – without being too prescriptive that you miss out on impromptu opportunities.
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2. Biggest names aren’t always the best speakers
The Web Summit’s biggest strength can also be it biggest weakness.
The event’s ability to attract the biggest names is not always matched by the quality of the interview.
On the opening night I joined around 20,000 other delegates in the MEO Arena for a star-studded launch event with tennis legend Maria Sharapova and Anton Osika, CEO of Swedish unicorn Lovable, which became the fastest AI startup in history when it hit $100m revenue in just eight months.
Khaby Lame on the stage at Web Summit 2025
The MEO Arena has previously hosted the likes of One Direction, Kylie Minogue, Britney Spears and Justin Bieber so it’s used to hosting big names.
The difference is they didn’t have a 25-minute slot (with no audience questions) to showcase their talents so a lot of the interviews weren’t particularly revealing.
Ironically, the most memorable speaker at the launch event was from the person who said the least.
25-year-old Khaby Lame’s wordless comedy has made him the most-followed creator on TikTok with 161 million followers and another 79 million followers on Instagram and his smile lit up the MEO Arena more than any of the lights on the main stage.
“If you just think about money, you’ll never get rich,” he told the audience. “You’ll get rich by doing what you love.”
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3. Content creators rule supreme
Wherever you looked at Web Summit, somebody was holding out an outstretched arm to talk into a mobile phone attached to a selfie stick.
It got me thinking that we’re all content creators in our own way, desperately trying to stand out from the crowd.
The speaker line-up was dominated by an eclectic mix of content creators, ranging from Keily Blair, CEO of OnlyFans, to serial entrepreneur and podcaster Grave Beverley.
28-year-old Beverley was one of my favourite speakers.
She has four companies and three million social media followers but didn’t try and sugarcoat the realities of business.
“Entrepreneurship is not glamorous at all,” she said. “A lot of the time it’s illogical to want to make something out of nothing when there are so many more secure careers you can go down.”
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4. Political support
This year’s event marked the 10th year of Web Summit in Lisbon and the city and the country have clearly benefited from their long association with Europe’s premier tech conference.
Carlos Moedas, Mayor of Lisbon, said 16 unicorns now have offices in Lisbon, while Gonçalo Matias, Deputy Minister and Minister for State Reform of Portugal, said the government is ‘actively supporting’ Portugal’s bid to be one of the five European gigafactories.
Lisbon is the perfect city to host Web Summit, underpinned by a reliable public transport system and WiFi network that doesn’t stop working on the Metro service.
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5. Women to the fore
One of the stand-outs statistics from the Web Summit was that 40 per cent of the 2,725 startups at the event were founded by women.
Given that only 2 per cent of VC investment in the UK goes to female-founded businesses, this feels significant.
It was also refreshing to see how many of the speakers and the hosts were female, although I don’t have the statistics to back this up.
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6. Power in being personal
In an event that attracted more than 70,000 people, the bit that I loved the most was the opportunity to interview some of the biggest names in tech.
The included: Monika Liikamaa, co-CEO at Finnish FinTech Enfuce; Sarah Franklin, CEO of US unicorn Lattice; Arvind Jain, founder and CEO of Glean, which was only founded in 2019 but is already valued at $7.2bn; Katherine Chan, CEO of UK FinTech Juice; and Lena Hackeloer, CEO of Swedish FinTech Brite Payments. They were all brilliant.
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7. Star quality
One of the surrealist experiences of the week was interviewing actor Cliff Curtis. He’s one of the stars of the Avatar series but he’s also passionate about affordable housing and serves as chief communications officer for New Zealand-based housing FinTech Bloxx.
Bloxx, which is the brainchild of Yorkshireman Chris Smith, describes itself as the world’s first home equity subscription. If he gets it right, it will be a global game-changer.
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8. All hail Paddy Cosgrave
Sporting a jumper with the word ‘PRESS’ on it in capital letters, Paddy Cosgrave gave the opening address at the 2025 Web Summit in Lisbon.
Cosgrave founded Web Summit in Dublin and he’s now one of the tech sector’s most respected names.
The first tech conference in 2009 was attended by just 150 people and has grown to the point that there are now Web Summits in Lisbon, Qatar, Vancouver and Rio.
In his opening address he said the innovation centre of the tech industry is shifting from the Western countries to Asia with China taking the lead in fields such as AI and humanoid robots.
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9. Power of community
Web Summit can feel pretty overwhelming and I was grateful to be part of GM Business Growth Hub’s ASCEND cohort, which was making its second trip to Lisbon.
I was also appreciative of the support of Web Summit veteran Kimberley Waldron, who is the founder of Started PR.
BusinessCloud’s Chris Maguire and Patrick Killeen at Web Summit
Not only did she help secure a number of the interviews she gave me the best piece of advice before leaving. “Wear flats, trainers, boats on your feet if you must, just be ready to clock up the steps,” she said.
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10. Fail to prepare, prepare to fail
Before leaving for Web Summit I spent over a day going through the schedule of the week.
I submitted 13 interview requests in advance, securing three.
Web Summit might feel chaotic because of its size but the organisation of the event was brilliant and slick.
Apparently, this year’s Web Summit was the first time the Lisbon event has been beset by heavy rain – which meant my decision to pack a waterproof was arguably the best one I made.