The North West’s innovation ecosystem received a powerful boost last night as Venture Café Manchester held its official launch, drawing 300 people to a packed house in the Renold Building within the city’s new £1.3bn innovation district Sister.
The event brought together a diverse cross-section of the region’s innovation community, including startup founders, investors, policymakers, academics and creatives, and was welcomed by city leaders including Councillor Bev Craig, leader of Manchester City Council, who opened the event with a video address.
Andrew Ruffler, Director, Venture Café Manchester: “The electric energy from our 300-strong launch proves the North West is ready for a new innovation catalyst. Venture Café’s regular Thursday Gatherings will connect the ecosystem’s incredible talent, research, and ideas. Isolation is the enemy of innovation. With partners like ARIA and Sister, we are powering an engine to give the best, boldest and brightest ideas the environment they need to flourish and thrive.
Joe Manning, Managing Director of Manchester’s inward investment agency MIDAS: “Venture Café Manchester arrives at an exciting time for our city region’s innovation community. By bringing together founders, researchers and investors regularly, it will help drive new collaborations across Greater Manchester, strengthening our position as a leading global innovation hub and location of choice.”
Venture Café Global Institute, the world’s leading innovation ecosystem activator, has a simple mission: connecting people to make things happen. With a model built around its signature Thursday Gatherings and other tailored local programming, Venture Café convenes more than 100,000 innovators annually in cities from Boston to Tokyo to Berlin.
The Manchester launch is a key part of a partnership between Venture Café and the UK’s Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA) to launch three UK Venture Cafe locations in 2025: London, Manchester and Edinburgh.
Pippy James, Chief Product Officer at the Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA): “Manchester has a remarkable legacy of world-changing breakthroughs, and an equally bold vision for the future. As the city doubles down on innovation with the launch of Venture Café Manchester, ARIA is proud to help create the spaces where bold ideas can spark, collide and grow. We want to see more of the UK’s brightest minds coming together here to push boundaries, challenge conventions and turn ambitious ideas into real-world impact.”
Venture Café Manchester will host its next event, Pitch2Tokyo on Thursday 20 November: a global pitch competition uniting innovators from Venture Café communities and beyond. At this regional heat, startups will pitch for the opportunity to represent Manchester in the international finals in Japan in February 2026. The event will feature a keynote address from Jo Ahmed (Deloitte, Honorary Consul for Japan in Manchester) and an esteemed judging panel including directors from the Manchester Fuel Cell Innovation Centre and the Turing Innovation Catalyst.