SportUp Café 2023

19th Jun 2023

A group of 60 SportsTech entrepreneurs and enthousiasts gathered in Startups Café in the heart of Ghent to listen to each other and possibly offer some help here or there. We experienced the evening as a fruitful, joyful and relaxing evening at an inspiring event spot!

What was the setting of the evening?

SportUp Meet turned into SportUp Café: the focus of this event was on making valuable connections between entrepreneurs and people in adjacent sport (tech) fields. Because in the end, it's all about connecting with the right people, isn't it?!

We changed the course of the evening. Normally we have a keynote speaker, startups pitching their venture in max 10 minutes and a closing presentation. This time, we limited the presentation style content to zero so the guests could get the most out of this networking event.

People could go on the stage and present very shortly who they are, what they do and what they need. And many people did: Senne from OnTracx, Julie from MySueño, Bernd from Opteamal, Liesbeth from Spinewise, and so on.

We learned from this evening that this rather classic networking method still works very well to get the most out of new connections. People can easily start a new conversation, ask for more information, offer their own skills, or give advice on the things people said were needed. By adding a nice drink and a little snack, we were totally up & running!

Enjoy the impressions of the evening in the video or in the pictures below!

What's next?

SportsTech startups can still apply for SportUp Boost. Due to a few internal changes, the program will look a little different. But we are still open to talk to you, help you on your topics of interest and make some initial introductions to relevant people. All of this may help as well in preparing for an imec.istart / SportUp Start application. The next call is opening up in September!

In the meantime, we're starting a new program called SportUp Yes, focused on the innovation related needs and ambitions of the Flemish sports federations. We'll offer qualitative guidance on how to deal with these type of projects. Again here, an important part will be on connecting and matchmaking as well, something we have some experience in as you may have noted already 😉.

If you want more information about SportUp and its services or activities, please contact us here.