Startup SAFARI is basically days of open doors for startup ecosystems: startups, companies, VCs and accelerators open their doors for attendees. Attendees register for sessions hosted by participating companies in their offices, travel around the city following their individual programs, interacting, learning and networking. Everyone is welcome to join.

Startup SAFARI will take place all over Cologne. There is not ONE specific venue location. Every participating startup, VC, Accelerator or Coworking Space will open its doors and hold individual sessions – and you can put together your own agenda.

SAFARI begins on Wednesday, 10 OCT at 9am and ends on Thursday, 11 OCT after the last session.

Money should not stop you from attending Startup SAFARI. That is the reason why we decided to only raise a small commitment fee – some tickets are even free of charge. You can find the ticket prices here.

All sessions will be held in English.

You can buy your ticket only online and not at the doors.

Startup SAFARI offers various opportunities to experience your local Startup Ecosystem. As a regular attendee you will have access to all regular sessions of Startup SAFARI. If a main purpose of your attendance is to network, the networking ticket will give you access to a selected number of sessions which are just made to get to know key players of the Cologne Startup Ecosystem.

You will receive an email from Eventbrite with your ticket information and how to register for your sessions. Once we open the registration for the sessions (in October), you will receive an email from our agenda tool letting you know that your profile has been created. Afterwards, you are free to create your own schedule.

Unfortunately that is not possible.

As much as we love to have plenty of people at the SAFARI, we need to keep organizational aspects in mind. For that reason it is not possible to bring someone without a valid ticket. Nevertheless we want everybody to join who wants to come. For that reason you can buy Startup SAFARI tickets online until the very last minute.

Unfortunately, a ticket refund is not possible.

Almost every session of Startup SAFARI is limited. For that reason it is very imporant to register for your prefered sessions beforehand.
You will receive an email before registration for the sessions start. Then better be quick since we have a “first come- first served” model.

You can start creating your personal agenda in October after you receive an email from our agenda tool.

According to the ticket you got, you have access to 1, 3, 6 or unlimited regular sessions listed in the agenda, as long as seats are available.

Once we open the registrations on the schedule (in October), you will receive an email from our agenda tool, letting you know that your profile on the site has been created. The email will provide a link to automatically log you in, where you’ll be able to pick sessions you’d like to attend and block your spot. You will also receive another email via Eventbrite to remind you to look after the email from our scheduling tool.

If you’ve purchased multiple tickets under the same email address rather than put individual contact details of your friends and colleagues joining you, please get in touch with us right away so we can add their email addresses to send out the invitation.

If you do change your mind and decide to reschedule your program, please ‘unselect’ the sessions you don’t wish to attend anymore so that others who’re on the waitlist will have the opportunity to take your spot.

A typical SAFARI session is 90 minutes long, with enough time between sessions to reach your next location.

Most sessions are located pretty central in the city, so you can walk or use public transport.

Travelling between different locations is a great networking opportunity. Usually you will be in a small group of just a couple of people, which makes connecting to each other much easier than in a room with a big crowd.
Ask people around you if anybody is going in the same direction as you are. You will be surprised how many people were only waiting for somebody to initiate it.

Better be quick! Session usually do have a maximum capacity which is set by the session host.
For this reason we cannot extent the number of spaces.

Individual sessions will usually have limited capacity. It’s necessary, because most of them are taking place in offices of participating companies. Each office is different and can hold a different number of people. We have to respect their hospitality and make sure that the crowd is not too big.

This means that sometimes sessions will be able to hold less people that would like to join them. For this reason, you should create your agenda as early as possible. If despite that, a session you want to attend has already filled up, you can always join the waitlist.

Very often we release some additional spots in oversubscribed sessions. Sometimes we are also able to add additional sessions at the same companies when they are in high demand.

You can start creating your personal agenda after we published the program, in October. You will receive an email right in time.