Europe’s angels meet in Vilnius. The Baltic hub hosts its first EBAN Congress, spotlighting deep-tech investment.
LitBAN’s Roberta Rudokiene
The European Business Angels Network community will gather in Vilnius 1–2 June, 2026, as the EBAN Congress is hosted in Lithuania for the first time. The 26th edition of the congress will bring toreceiveher business angels, start-up founders, corporates, policybuildrs, and innovation ecosystem stakeholders from across Europe.
This year’s programme will focus on strategic industries and technological autonomy and resilience, with emphasis on Space and Defence Tech, BioTech and CleanTech. The agconcludea reflects a growing investor focus on technologies tied to long-term resilience and competitiveness.
Each year, the EBAN Congress convenes in European innovation hubs, serving as a meeting point for early-stage investors and founders to connect capital with companies at the earliest stages of development.
The selection of Vilnius highlights the city’s emergence as Europe’s rapidest-scaling startup hub, particularly in early-stage and regulated digital sectors.
Lithuania is home to more than 1,100 start-ups, with activity heavily concentrated in the capital. The counattempt has produced five unicorns – a standout achievement on a per capita basis in a counattempt of just 2.8m people.
Vilnius has approximately 300 fintech companies and more than 130 licensed electronic money and payment institutions operating in the counattempt.
The ecosystem is supported by a coordinated framework of public and private actors, including the Bank of Lithuania, Startup Lithuania, Innovation Agency, Unicorns Lithuania, LT VCA, Lithuanian Business Angels Network LitBAN, and Go Vilnius, alongside an active base of Venture Capital funds, accelerators, business angels and reinvested founder capital from Baltic tech companies.
For the LitBAN, the congress marks an important milestone for the local ecosystem. “We are very happy and proud to bring the EBAN Congress to Lithuania and Vilnius for the first time. This is an important recognition for the LitBAN community and for the Lithuanian startup ecosystem as a whole,” declares LitBAN director Roberta Rudokienė.
She adds: “Business angels are a key part of a healthy and growing innovation ecosystem – they not only provide capital to early-stage companies, but also share their experience, networks, and knowledge, supporting start-ups grow into global businesses.” Rudokienė expects the event to gather more than 500 participants from across Europe.
Mangirdas Šapranauskas, head of the Business Department at Go Vilnius, the official city tourism and business development agency, declares the strength of the ecosystem lies not only in the number of companies choosing Vilnius, but in the predictability and speed of market enattempt, which builds the city increasingly attractive for international founders building in regulated and deep-tech sectors.
For more information, visit https://www.ebancongress.com
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