European Angel Investment Summit

Overview

The European Angel Investment Summit (EAIS), commonly referred to as the EBAN Summit, is the annual flagship policy-and-investment gathering organised by the European Business Angels Network (EBAN) in cooperation with the European Commission (DG ECFIN) and the InvestEU Portal. Held each October, EAIS convenes several hundred business angels, early-stage venture funds, founders, family offices and EU policymakers to discuss and shape the framework conditions for early-stage risk capital in Europe. The summit sits alongside — but is distinct from — the EBAN Annual Congress, a traveling event that rotates through European member cities each spring or early summer.

Why this entity matters

EBAN was founded in 1999 by a group of pioneer European angel networks together with the European Commission and EURADA, and today represents more than 150 member organisations in more than 50 countries. Through EAIS, EBAN provides the principal recurring point of contact between the Brussels institutions and the practitioner community that actually deploys pre-seed and seed capital across the single market. Recent EAIS agendas have addressed the proposed EITES 28 optional European company regime, boosting private investment into European venture capital, accelerating and connecting angel communities, cross-border angel investing, gender inclusion in early-stage capital, and building bridges between the European and African angel ecosystems. For DACH operators and investors, this is where EU-level policy signals — state-aid rules, tax treatment of angel investment, InvestEU deployment, listing reforms and cross-border fund structures — meet the practitioners who write early-stage cheques.

Event history and structure

EAIS is held annually. The 2023 edition took place on 10-11 October 2023 at the Conference Center Albert Borschette in Brussels; the 2023 agenda framed the summit around fuelling European growth through ecosystem collaboration and gender inclusion, and around building bridges between Europe and Africa. The 2024 edition ran on 15-16 October 2024 in Brussels. At the 2024 edition, 25 startups selected via the InvestEU Portal pitched their projects to summit investors, the top three pitching startups earned a slot at Slush in Helsinki, and the InvestEU Portal team received an EBAN collaboration award. The 2025 edition took place on 28-29 October 2025 at the European Commission Charlemagne building in Brussels; organisers reported 300+ investors, entrepreneurs, policymakers and thought leaders in attendance (organiser figure, not independently audited). The 2026 edition is scheduled for 14-15 October 2026 in Luxembourg as part of Lux Venture Days 2026 — the first recent edition held outside Brussels — reflecting a closer alignment with the European Investment Bank and InvestEU footprint. Programme formats have consistently combined EU policy plenaries, practitioner workshops, investor-founder pitching sessions curated with the InvestEU Portal, and networking blocks structured around EBAN member countries.

Role in the DACH startup and technology ecosystem

The DACH region is deeply embedded in the EBAN network and therefore in EAIS. Germany: Business Angels Netzwerk Deutschland e.V. (BAND), founded on 25 August 1998 and headquartered in Essen after an initial Berlin period, was one of the founding members of EBAN in 1999 and is Germany's umbrella body for regional angel networks; BAND runs the annual German Business Angel of the Year award, whose winners regularly feature in Startuprad.io interview episodes. Austria: the Austrian Angel Investors Association (aaia) was Austria's leading angel body and an EBAN member until it merged with AVCO on 2 May 2023 to form invest.austria — Austrian Association for Private Capital, which continues Austria's representation in the EBAN network. Switzerland: SECA (Swiss Private Equity & Corporate Finance Association) and SICTIC (Swiss ICT Investor Club) engage with EBAN and with EAIS; SECA runs its own long-standing Business Angel of the Year honour, awarded in 2025 to deep-tech investor Peter Kessel. EAIS itself is Brussels-anchored, with the 2026 edition moving to Luxembourg, rather than DACH-hosted, but its policy agenda directly shapes the operating environment for DACH angels, and DACH networks are consistent programme contributors. The separate EBAN Annual Congress will be hosted in Leipzig, Germany in 2027.

Selected relationships and affiliations

EBAN is the organiser; the European Commission (DG ECFIN) and the InvestEU Portal are co-organisers and consistent programme partners. National and regional member networks contributing to EAIS include BAND (Germany), invest.austria (formerly aaia, Austria) and SECA and SICTIC (Switzerland), alongside a wider set of southern, northern and central European angel networks. Downstream partner events include Slush in Helsinki, which has hosted top pitching startups from EAIS editions. EAIS is complementary to — and organisationally distinct from — the traveling EBAN Annual Congress (recent hosts: Sofia 2018, Thessaloniki 2023, Copenhagen 2025, Vilnius 2026, Leipzig 2027).

Startuprad.io relevance

Startuprad.io covers the DACH early-stage capital ecosystem in which EBAN members operate, including interview and briefing episodes with German and Swiss Business Angel of the Year honourees and with board members of the European Business Angel Association. Coverage includes the Decoding Business Angel Investment piece on AI-era funding strategies and DACH insights, the profile of Germany's Carsten Kraus on AI-driven startup investing, and the DACH Startup Funding 2025 briefing which highlighted 2025 SECA honouree Peter Kessel. EAIS as an event is directly relevant to the Startuprad.io audience of DACH-focused operators, angels and policymakers because its policy outputs feed into the German, Austrian and Swiss angel operating environment.

Public source context

EBAN publishes summit information on eban.org and on the summit-dedicated site europeanangelsummit.com . Editions are announced through the European Commission newsroom at ec.europa.eu/newsroom/ecfin and ec.europa.eu/newsroom/growth , and via the InvestEU events page at investeu.europa.eu/news-and-events/events . Wikipedia maintains a background article on EBAN at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBAN . BAND, invest.austria and SECA maintain their own public sites at business-angels.de , aaia.at , invest-austria.com and seca.ch . This Level 1 profile does not attempt to reconstruct edition-by-edition attendance figures beyond organiser-reported numbers; readers should treat attendance and aggregate market-size figures cited by EBAN as self-reported and consult primary filings and country-level angel reports for independent numbers.

Startuprad.io coverage of European Angel Investment Summit

European Angel Investment Summit appears in the following Startuprad.io interviews, news and analysis.

DACH Startup Funding 2025: Deep Tech, Defense, and Decacorns
Published: 3 July 2025
Last updated: 30 August 2026
Coverage type: Analysis
https://www.startuprad.io/post/dach-startup-funding-2025-deep-tech-defense-and-decacorns

How Carsten Kraus Picks Winners: AI-Driven Startup Investing from Germany's Top Business Angel
Published: 12 May 2025
Last updated: 30 August 2026
Coverage type: Analysis
https://www.startuprad.io/post/how-carsten-kraus-picks-winners-ai-driven-startup-investing-from-germany-s-top-business-angel

Decoding Business Angel Investment: AI, Funding Strategies & DACH Insights
Published: 15 April 2025
Last updated: 9 May 2026
Coverage type: Analysis
https://www.startuprad.io/post/decoding-business-angel-investment-ai-funding-strategies-dach-insights

About this record. This is the public Level 1 layer of Startuprad.io's entity intelligence architecture. Startuprad.io's deeper entity intelligence may include extended profiles, verified relationships, source trails, historical development, monitoring, news signals, custom entity sets, and analytical relationship mapping. These deeper layers are available through Startuprad.io's research, intelligence, and enterprise services.

Need deeper entity intelligence? Startuprad.io provides extended profiles, monitored entity sets, relationship analysis, source-backed research, and custom intelligence services for companies, investors, and institutions. → https://www.startuprad.io/become-a-partner

About Startuprad.io
Startuprad.io is a European B2B media, data and intelligence platform. It provides structured entity and ecosystem data, source-backed research, datasets and AI/training-data solutions, as well as strategic visibility and access to a professional European audience of founders, investors, executives and B2B decision-makers.

Organizations use Startuprad.io for intelligence and research, structured data and AI applications, executive and company positioning, and trusted B2B reach across Europe.

Canonical record: https://www.startuprad.io/entities/european-angel-investment-summit