RiseUp Summit '26About
The Story
RiseUp Summit began in 2013 and has run every year since. The format has barely changed, because the thing that works about it was never the programme — it was putting founders, funds, operators and regulators inside the same square kilometre and leaving them there for three days.
What comes out of that is not content. It is the conversation in the queue, the introduction that did not need a warm intro, and the cheque that got written because two people were standing in the same hall. Remote networking does not produce it, and a bigger agenda does not either.
Thirteen editions of it is the part a newer event cannot copy. The region already plans its year around these dates.
100,000+
Attendees
Across thirteen editions since 2013, from a few hundred people in downtown Cairo.
2,000+
Speakers
Founders, operators, investors and policymakers who have taken a RiseUp stage.
2,000+
Investors
Regional and international funds who came to the floor to deploy.
1,000+
Exhibiting startups
Companies that showed their product to the room rather than pitching into a void.
200+
Partners
Institutions, corporates and funds who have backed an edition.
In the Room
Five stages, an exhibition floor, and twenty thousand people who all came to be in the same place at the same time.
20,000+
Entrepreneurs, one square kilometre
150+ nationalities, 400+ speakers, three days.
Testimonials
Founders, investors and operators on what three days in Cairo actually changed for them.
We came to raise and left with a term sheet, but that is not the part I tell people about. It is the four hours in the hall between sessions, talking to operators who had already solved the thing we were stuck on.
Omar HassanCo-founder and CEO, Marfa LogisticsI see more of the region’s founders in three days here than in three months of scheduled calls. That is the entire reason the fund books it a year out.
Lena AdlerGeneral Partner, Northbound VenturesThe density is the product. You cannot manufacture the conversation that happens when the regulator, the bank and the startup are all standing in the same queue for coffee.
Tomas VogelDirector of Digital Economy, MENA Digital Council26–28 December 2026 · Cairo
The Turning Point
Three days in Cairo with twenty thousand people who are building the same thing you are.