In an increasingly competitive and digitally driven marketplace, startups must embrace the transformative power of AI to redefine their sales strategies. This masterclass focuses on equipping AI-driven startup founders with practical frameworks to build effective sales ecosystems through strategic alliances, channel partnerships, and advanced AI tools. Participants will explore how AI can enhance sales processes, streamline collaborations, and unlock high-value opportunities by through direct sales motions and also by leveraging partnerships with managed service providers (MSPs), managed security service providers (MSSPs), global systems integrators (GSIs), value-added resellers (VARs), and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). The session’s actionable insights will empower founders to scale their startups effectively and sustainably.
Learning Objectives
By the end of the session, participants will be able to:
- Design Effective Sales Ecosystems: Evaluate and develop strategic sales channels (e.g. Direct, Distribution, Marketplaces, MSPs, MSSPs, GSIs, VARs) using AI-driven insights to optimize partner selection and engagement.
- Leverage AI for Opportunity Identification: Use AI tools to analyze data and uncover high-value sales opportunities across multiple channels.
- The Human Aspect: Sales in complex, high value, consultative scenarios, risks and rewards.
- Streamline Partner Collaboration: Implement AI-powered platforms to enhance communication, track performance, and foster productive partnerships.
- Measure and Improve Sales Performance: Utilize AI to track sales metrics, predict trends, and adjust strategies for optimal results.
- Scale Strategically: Build and execute scalable sales processes that integrate seamlessly with AI technologies, ensuring global market readiness.
This session explores how startups can effectively leverage AI to drive both immediate business value and long-term strategic growth. From understanding the AI value chain and business models to crafting an AI strategy roadmap, participants will gain actionable insights into building, scaling, and evaluating AI-powered solutions. The session highlights challenges specific to AI startups and provides tools for navigating them, ensuring startups are equipped to become leaders in the AI-driven future.
Learning Objectives
By the end of the session, participants will be able to:
- Analyze the AI value chain to identify areas where startups can create and capture value.
- Distinguish AI-driven business models tailored to different sectors and challenges.
- Develop a strategic roadmap for achieving AI maturity, considering data, culture, and governance as enablers.
Fast-growing AI startups often chase expansion at the expense of ethics, reliability, or user trust—only to face costly setbacks later. Beyond Growth: Scaling AI Without Regret delivers a concise, battle-tested playbook for founders who want to accelerate responsibly. You’ll discover practical, startup-friendly frameworks that blend enterprise-grade governance with lean execution. Through real-world case studies, learn how to anticipate and mitigate risks like model drift, data bias, and governance gaps. Gain the tools to design transparent architectures, embed accountability checkpoints, and communicate trust-centered value to investors and partners. Leave armed with a clear path to scale your AI solution with confidence—no regrets, only sustainable impact.
Learning Objectives
By the end of the session, participants will be able to:
- Identify the top three ethical and operational risks that emerge during rapid AI scaling.
- Apply a lightweight governance framework and product roadmap.
- Design monitoring checkpoints for model performance, bias, and data integrity.
- Evaluate stakeholder communication strategies to build and maintain trust.
- Formulate a scalable, accountable architecture blueprint that supports both growth and social impact.
This masterclass aims to build an understanding of Gen AI’ impact on human cognition and its implications for how best to leverage it in the startup environment. We will first dive into insights about how Gen AI’s distinct output qualities interact with human cognition and decision-making processes, considering its capacity for persuasion, the risk of bias amplification, and the subtle effects of AI ‘sycophancy’. Next, we will explore how these qualities could influence decision dynamics in start-ups when AI is introduced as a collaborative agent in contexts varying from routine task automation over idea generation to complex strategic planning. Finally, we will discuss how these insights translate into actionable guidance for founders, highlighting opportunities to harness AI for productivity and creativity whilst trying to mitigate the risks in environments characterized by scarce resources, tight deadlines, and high pressure to innovate rapidly.
Timing is crucial when fundraising for your startup. Join Josep Aliagas—an experienced founder, investor, and investment banker who has worked with startups across various industries and countries—to learn how to identify the optimal moment to seek external funding. This session will explore the key milestones and market conditions that signal your readiness to raise funds. Discover how to align your growth strategy with investor expectations, maximizing valuation and securing the capital needed to scale your startup successfully.
Learning Objectives
By the end of the session, participants will be able to:
- How to identify the optimal moment for raising funds.
- Recognize negotiation techniques with investors.
- Assess market conditions that support funding decisions.
- Align growth strategies with investor expectations.
- Explore methods to maximize startup valuation.
- Understand investor evaluation criteria.
- Develop effective pitch strategies.
Speaker(s)
This lecture explores the unique challenges and opportunities involved in bringing deeptech innovations, scientific and engineering breakthroughs with high technical complexity, to market. Participants will learn how robust innovation ecosystems play a crucial role in bridging the gap between the lab and commercial viability. The session will cover key elements of successful ecosystem building, including collaboration between academia, startups, corporates, investors, and government bodies. Through case studies and strategic frameworks, attendees will gain insights into how to scale deeptech ventures, navigate long development timelines, and attract the right stakeholders to foster sustainable innovation.
Learning Objectives
By the end of the session, learners will be able to:
- Recall examples of ecosystem stakeholders (e.g., universities, VCs, corporates, policymakers).
- Explain the unique challenges associated with commercializing deeptech innovations.
- Examine the roles and incentives of different stakeholders in ecosystem development.
- Justify the importance of policy and funding mechanisms in enabling commercialization.
- Propose collaboration models to accelerate market readiness of deeptech innovations.
In this masterclass, Tomas will share insights from the in-depth analysis of over 50 startup brands conducted over the past months within his international branding studio GoBigname. Drawing from 15 years of branding expertise and experience with 300+ brand launches and brand evolutions, his team has distilled essential fundamentals that every startup in this age needs to know. You will learn key principles and lessons backed by real-world examples of successful startups and scale-ups that not only thrive in their markets but also attract global attention.
Learning Objectives
By the end of the session, learners will be able to:
- Identify the costliest mistakes startups make in branding and marketing and avoid them.
- Break down the key drivers behind brand growth with practical frameworks and examples.
- Define and select brand codes that resonate with your target audience and differentiate your business.
- Analyze which branding elements directly impact market share and prioritize them effectively.
