If you’re building a software company in New York City, the right event can unlock investor intros, early hires, or just a clearer sense of what other founders are doing in the market. Especially since NYC is the 2nd largest and 2nd most valuable tech hub in the world.
At Bonfire Ventures, we’ve reviewed thousands of early-stage decks and backed breakout B2B software companies. So we built this list through the lens of what’s worth your time if you're looking to meet investors for SaaS & software companies, early-stage founders, and operators.
Use it to plan your calendar, prep for conversations, and start making the right connections.
Tech and Startup Events in NYC
Here are some upcoming events for SaaS founders looking to meet fellow builders, potential investors, and tech talent in New York.
Startup Grind NYC: How to Win a $1M Pitch Competition
- Date: August 12, 2025, 3:00-6:00 PM
- Location: The Yard: Herald Square, 106 West 32nd Street, New York, NY 10001
- Price: Tickets start at $1
This fireside chat features Nyamitse-Calvin Mahinda, CEO of Vital Audio, who dominated Startup World Cup NYC and advanced to the global Grand Finale with a shot at $1M. Calvin's healthcare AI startup converts voice recordings into medical vital signs. In this event, he'll reveal the pitch strategies that separated his 4-minute presentation from 100+ competitors.
Startup Grind NYC: Pitches and Pints Happy Hour Showcase
- Date: August 21, 2025, 5:30-7:30 PM
- Location: The Yard: Herald Square, 106 West 32nd Street, New York, NY 10001
- Price: Tickets start at $5
This Pitches and Pints Happy Hour Showcase allows for fun showcasing of early-stage ideas without the stress of competition or celebrity VCs. Five emerging NYC startups will present 5-minute pitches followed by constructive Q&A from fellow founders, giving you a first look at fresh ideas sometimes before VCs have even seen them. For SaaS founders, this offers the chance to practice your own pitch in a supportive environment.
Startup Grind NYC: Founder Drinks Roundtable
- Date: August 29, 2025, 2:00-4:00 PM
- Location: Shades of Green Pub, 125 East 15th Street, New York, NY 10003
- Price: Free (just pay for your own drinks)
This casual Founder Drinks Roundtable breaks the formality of typical networking events. There are no presentations, no pitches, and no approval processes. Just founders connecting over drinks in a relaxed pub setting near Union Square.
NY Tech Meetup September 2025
- Date: September 8, 2025, 6:00-9:30 PM
- Location: Civic Hall Union Square, 124 E 14th St, 2nd Floor, New York, NY
- Price: TBD
NY Tech Meetup is one of the world's largest tech meetups, running since 2004 with over 60,000 members. This event is for entrepreneurs, founders, and CEOs to demo cutting-edge technologies in front of a packed room of NYC's tech community. Each meetup features live product demos, Q&A sessions with founders, and extensive networking time.
App Promotion Summit New York
- Date: September 18, 2025
- Location: 360 Madison AveNew York, NY 10017
- Price: Tickets starting at $450
The App Promotion Summit New York gathers app marketing, growth, and product leaders to provide insights into scaling apps. The agenda covers AI-enabled marketing for real-time insights and predictive analytics, product-led growth techniques, and advanced user retention strategies with personalization. Key sessions focus on privacy-centric user acquisition, revenue growth for subscription-based apps, and multi-channel strategies for enhanced visibility.
MLCON New York 2025
- Date: September 29 - October 3, 2025
- Location: New York (venue TBD) and online
- Price: Single day workshops start around $629
MLCON New York is a machine lerning conference for technical founders, data scientists, and AI engineers. The conference features hands-on workshops, technical sessions on MLOps, generative AI implementation, and real-world case studies from companies successfully scaling AI-powered products.
This is the perfect event for SaaS founders incorporating machine learning into their core product offerings.
Customer Success Week 2025
- Date: Starts September 30, 2025, 9:00 AM-5:00 PM EDT
- Location: 225 Liberty St, New York, NY 10281
- Price: Tickets start at $499
The Customer Success Week 2025 gathering features four stages, 50+ speakers from the world's top technology companies, and a global community of thought leaders. Hosted by the Customer Success Meetup, the event attracts VPs, SVPs, and CCOs from Silicon Valley's most successful companies, including GitLab, Salesforce, Cloudflare, and Gong. The speaker lineup includes CEOs from companies like Catalyst, Matik, and Brightback.
DevOpsCon New York 2025
- Date: September 29 - October 3, 2025
- Location: New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge Hotel
- Price: Single-day workshops start around $629
DevOpsCon New York focuses on the DevOps, cloud infrastructure, and engineering operations communities that power SaaS businesses. The event highlights practical DevOps implementation, covering Kubernetes orchestration, CI/CD pipeline optimization, cloud platform strategies, and infrastructure automation.
Sessions include real-world case studies from companies that have successfully scaled their infrastructure to support millions of users and enterprise-grade security requirements.
New York 2025 Venture Capital World Summit
- Date: October 1, 2025, 10 AM-5 PM EDT
- Location: 45 Rockefeller Plaza, Suite 2000, New York, NY 10111
- Price: General tickets start around $430
This New York 2025 Venture Capital World Summit conference connects startups with venture capitalists through speaker panels, investor presentations, and live pitch sessions. The agenda features Q&As, networking breaks, and discussions on fundraising, scaling, and international growth. This event is hosted by Venture Capital World Summit Inc. as part of its North America conference series.
LeadDev New York 2025
- Date: October 15-16, 2025
- Location: Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, New York
- Price: Tickets start around $1,325
LeadDev New York is an engineering leadership conference for founders transitioning from individual contributors to team leaders. The conference features practical sessions on engineering management, team scaling strategies, and leadership frameworks specifically designed for the technical challenges facing growing software companies. Expect talks on managing technical debt, building effective development processes, and creating engineering cultures that attract top talent in competitive markets.
The Business of WE (Women Entrepreneurs) 2025 Summit
- Date: October 27, 2025, 9:00 AM-6:00 PM
- Location: 630SECOND, New York, NY
- Price: $297
This 10th annual Business of WE 2025 Summit connects female founders, business women, and entrepreneurs from NYC and surrounding areas for a full day of networking and business development. The event operates as both a conference and an all-day business mastermind, featuring rapid-fire implementation strategies, roundtable conversations, and practical tools for business growth. Attendees can bring laptops to handle business calls as needed.
World Business Forum NYC 2025
- Date: November 5-6, 2025
- Location: Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, New York, NY
- Price: Tickets start at $3999
This flagship annual leadership event, World Business Forum NYC 2025, brings together global business leaders, entrepreneurs, and innovators for two days of keynote sessions, networking, and strategic insights. The forum focuses on business strategy, creative thinking, and innovation leadership. Your ticket includes on-demand access to all sessions until December 31st, plus exclusive invitations to year-round networking events and access to WOBI's Digital Library with 300+ hours of leadership content.
Tech Up For Women Conference NYC
- Date: November 12, 2025, 12:00-6:00 PM
- Location: Metropolitan Pavilion, New York City
- Price: Tickets start at $150
This one-day Tech Up For Women Conference NYC empowers women across all industries to advance their careers through technology knowledge. The agenda features sessions on emerging tech trends, AI implementation, data analytics, and digital transformation strategies. Past speakers have included executives from Meta, Google, HubSpot, McKinsey Digital, and Takeda.
Customer Success Summit New York
- Date: March 10-11, 2026, 9 AM-6 PM
- Location: 360 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10017
- Price: Individual passes start at $995
This two-day Customer Success Summit brings together customer success leaders, SaaS operators, and startup founders to share strategies on retention, expansion, and long-term customer value. Attendees can expect a mix of case studies, strategy panels, and tactical workshops on everything from churn reduction to product-led onboarding. There's also time built in for peer networking, roundtable discussions, and vendor demos.
New York City Small Business Conference
- Date: May 7, 2026, 10 AM-5 PM
- Location: Javits Convention Center, Hall 1A, NYC
- Price: Free
Product-Led Summit New York
- Date: May 21-22, 2026, 9 AM-5 PM
- Location: 340 W 50th St, New York, NY 10019
- Price: Individual passes start at $995
The Product-Led Summit is where you can connect with product managers, founders, and growth leaders focused on scaling through self-serve and product-led growth (PLG) strategies. Watch talks from product leaders at top SaaS companies, tactical workshops on activation and monetization, and networking with over 200 attendees. The event is designed for both early-stage startups experimenting with PLG and larger companies looking to optimize their product-led funnel.
The OOO Summit
- Date: Friday, September 18, 2026
- Location: New York City, exact venue TBD
- Price: General admission starts at $99
This is a one-day flagship OOO Summit gathering for entrepreneurs, creators, and ambitious builders. The OOO Summit features keynote speakers, breakout sessions, and networking to spark new connections and collaborations. This is great if you're looking to build relationships across industries beyond tech.
TECHSPO New York 2026
- Date: Summer-Autumn 2026 (exact dates TBD)
- Location: New York City (venue TBD)
- Price: Admission likely to start at $27
TECHSPO New York is a two-day tech expo showcasing the latest in Internet, mobile, AdTech, MarTech, and SaaS innovation. It brings together developers, product leaders, marketers, and tech vendors to demo solutions and explore trends with real-world applications. This expo features exhibit halls, networking opportunities, and exposure to new tools.
Meet Your Startup’s Next Investor in NYC
You can meet plenty of people at these events like fellow founders, potential hires, even the occasional angel. But if you’re looking for a lead investor who knows B2B SaaS inside and out, consider Bonfire Ventures.
At Bonfire Ventures, we lead Seed rounds for early-stage software startups, writing $2.5–$4 million checks and working hands-on with founders to help them win their first real customers. We only back a handful of companies each year, so when we invest, we’re all in.
We’ve helped companies navigate enterprise sales, pricing experiments, product-market fit pivots, and Series A raises. Our partners have been investing in B2B SaaS for over a decade.
If that’s the kind of investor you’re looking for, get in touch with Bonfire Ventures here.
