- How To Web’s Spotlight Competition 2026 selected 20 early-stage Eastern European startups for concentrated investor access in Bucharest
- Founders gain pitching, mentoring, product demonstrations, matchmaking, and networking opportunities with international investors
- The three-day program includes semifinal pitches, Demo Area booths, tailored mentoring, fundraising, and sales sessions
- Eligible startups are under five years old, have raised under EUR 700K, launched, and reveal global ambition
For an early-stage founder in Eastern Europe, building an international network can be an expensive exercise. The investors, potential customers and experienced operators relevant to a company are often scattered across markets, turning access into a combination of introductions, travel and relationships built over time.
Spotlight 2026 is looking to compress some of that journey into three days in Bucharest. 
Taking place at How to Web Conference between October 6th and 8th, the startup program and competition will select 20 early-stage companies from Eastern Europe and put them in a concentrated environment of investor meetings, mentoring, pitching and product exposure.
The wider conference is an important part of that equation because investors active across Europe and the US will be in Bucharest, including representatives from Atomico, Eurazeo, Creandum, Notion Capital, 20VC, Cherry Ventures, Credo Ventures, OTB Ventures, Dawn Capital, and Inovo VC.
For the selected startups, the opportunity is to use that concentration of international capital alongside the dedicated access built into Spotlight. Founders receive access to the conference matchmaking system and the investor list ahead of the event, allowing relevant meetings to be arranged before everyone arrives in Bucharest.
And fundraising is only one possible outcome.
Carmelina Lungu, Startup Relationship Manager at How To Web
‘There are many valuable investor meetings during the conference, as well as with all the conference’s attendees. For founders, this environment can produce customer relationships, commercial partnerships and conversations with founders facing similar challenges. It creates a compressed learning environment where founders can compare experiences and exchange information that is difficult to obtain elsewhere,’
— Carmelina Lungu, Startup Relationship Manager at How to Web
Twenty Startups, Several Ways to Get Noticed
The Spotlight format gives the selected founders multiple opportunities to put their companies in front of that audience.
It starts on October 6th with a pitching dry run. A day later, all 20 semifinalists will pitch on the How to Web Conference stage, with five selected by the jury to return for the final.
Every startup also receives a dedicated booth for one day in the Demo Area, where founders can demonstrate their products and meet potential customers, partners and investors. Meetings can be scheduled directly through the conference networking app.
After the pitch competition, on October 8, all 20 companies move into tailored 1:1 mentoring sessions built around their specific challenges.
The mentor pool brings together founders, operators, and investors from BCR, Stripe, Underline Ventures, Smok Ventures, Portfolion, Cherry Ventures, Acurio Ventures, Kaya VC, and Vest Ventures, alongside with some of How to Web Conference speakers joining the program.
The timing is deliberate: because mentoring follows the competition, founders can receive feedback on both the underlying business and how they presented it. The program also includes fundraising and sales sessions, including practical formats such as live pitch-deck analysis.
Together, those formats turn Spotlight into something closer to a three-day test of how a young company performs in front of the wider market: how clearly founders can explain what they are building, which investors respond to it, what potential customers see in the product and what experienced operators identify as its next challenge.
That also reflects what the Spotlight team looks for when selecting the 20 companies. Applications are assessed around three broad areas: the size of the market and relevance of the problem, the capability of the founding team and the clarity of thinking behind the product. For very early-stage companies, large traction numbers are not always available; founders still need to demonstrate that they understand the problem, their market and the path ahead.
Spotlight 2026 is open to Eastern European startups that are less than five years old, have raised under EUR 700K, have a launched product with some traction and aim to scale globally.
How to Web Conference 2026 takes place in Bucharest from October 6th to 8th. The event is built in partnership with BCR, Google, Underline Ventures and with the support of PPC, Stripe, Credo Ventures, Cytowski & Partners, Inovo VC, Portfolion, TechAngels, 3VC.
Kostiantyn is a freelance writer from Crimea but based in Lviv. He loves writing about IT and high tech because those topics are always upbeat and he’s an inherent optimist!
