What is Web Summit?
Web Summit is one of the biggest tech conferences in the world with over 70,000 participants in attendance. Located in the heart of Lisbon, the event welcomes startups and Fortune 500 companies to showcase their innovative ideas. This year, Ripple was invited to join as part of the Alpha startup program. Our hopes were to reach a wider audience, and gain interest from investors and businesses alike.
Startup Showcase, and PITCH
Sarah Merrick, our CEO, presented a two-minute presentation for the Startup Showcase event, and a three-minute pitch for the PITCH event. In the Startup Showcase, she discussed the growing trend of households switching to renewable energy to power their homes, and how Ripple is the first company to allow people to own their own source of green electricity by owning part of a wind farm.
The three-minute pitch offered the chance to go into more depth on the points above. Some points covered the ownership co-operative, and how wind farm ownership could be up to 75% cheaper than rooftop solar.
The judges loved Ripple’s pitch, and we got fantastic exposure for the Ripple brand.
Where are all the clean tech companies?
With carbon emissions and renewable energy being hot on everyone’s minds, filling a large part of the Web Summit conference agenda, it came as a surprise that there were very few clean tech startups at the event.
This begs the question – is it because people believe it’s a difficult sector to enter, or is there simply a lack of innovation within the sector? Nonetheless it was a great opportunity for Ripple to lead the way with our innovative model, challenging the status quo along the way.
Team Ripple 
Prime Minister, António Costa
The 60-second ring of fire (an invitation from EDP)
EDP (the Portuguese state energy company) invited Ripple to take part in their ‘knock out pitch’ event. The stage was a boxing ring which rose and descended over 60 seconds, during which you could pitch your idea to them. It was great that such an established company was actively seeking out startups to engage with.
Final thoughts
Web Summit was a fantastic chance for us to connect with some of the world’s biggest tech companies. There were lots of opportunities to create partnerships, and find new ways of improving productivity.
Showcasing Ripple on the international stage allowed us to reflect on how Ripple can integrate technology into its platform for greatest effect. It’s got us thinking about how our customers could potentially benefit from effortlessly shifting their electricity demand to times when the output of their wind farm was highest. In other words, there’s certainly plenty of food for thought!
