San Francisco Tech Week has hundreds of events. We picked 12 founder-focused events worth putting on your calendar, from investor dinners to AI meetups and funding workshops.
SF Tech Week is basically San Francisco saying, “You want to meet founders? Investors? AI people? Here, have 500 events.”
So definitely, the problem isn't finding something to do. It's figuring out which events deserve your time when your calendar is already packed with meetings, demos, dinners, and people promising to “grab coffee sometime.”
We went through the founder-focused events on the SF Tech Week calendar and picked 12 worth knowing about. Some are built for fundraising. Some are better for meeting other founders. Others are for hiring, AI, B2B, or simply getting out of another conference room. We have it all.
Here's what you'll get from each one:
Who's actually going to be there
Why the event is worth your time
What you'll actually do there
Who should skip it
Where to register
1. Funded Female Founders VII
October 5, 2026 | 5:00 PM to 8:30 PM
CBRE, 415 Mission St, San Francisco
Funded Female Founders VII on Partiful
If you're a female founder raising now, preparing to raise, or trying to get closer to the people who write the checks, put this one high on the list.
Funded Female Founders is built around one thing: getting female founders and investors into the same room.
And this isn't a random networking crowd. Attendees are individually vetted, with founders, VCs, GPs, angels, operators, and ecosystem leaders expected in the room.
Why attend?
This event gives you a room where those conversations are the point.
The series has already brought together 1,500+ founders, investors, and leaders across six events, and this is its seventh gathering.
What to expect
There are two panels.
The founder panel features:
Brooke Hopkins, Founder & CEO of Coval
Kristina Cahojova, Founder & CEO of Lady Technologies
Amanda Levay, Founder & CEO of Redactable
Then comes a VC panel with investors from Emmeline Ventures, L'ATTITUDE Ventures & Libra, and Unshackled Ventures.
After that, it's networking.
Best for: Female founders raising or preparing to raise, VCs, angels, and operators supporting growing companies.
One thing to know: Registration is subject to approval.
2. YC Founders Mixer
October 5, 2026 | 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM
San Francisco
No panel. No pitch competition. No founder standing on a stage telling you how they went from $0 to $10M. Honestly? This is refreshing.
This mixer brings together current YC founders, alumni, and YC-backed founders across stages.
Why attend?
Because sometimes the most useful conversation at Tech Week is with another founder who's dealing with the exact problem you're dealing with.
Hiring. Fundraising. Finding product-market fit. Trying to figure out what happens after the next milestone.
You get to compare notes with people who have been through different YC batches and stages.
What to expect
Drinks, light bites, introductions, and founder-to-founder conversations.
There's a short welcome from the hosts, then the room opens up for networking.
The event is hosted by Open Future Forum with members of the YC founder community.
Best for: Current YC founders, alumni, and YC-backed founders.
One thing to know: This is approval-required, and registration does not guarantee admission. It is also an independent community event, not an official Y Combinator event.
3. B2B Founders Sail in the Bay ⛵
October 5, 2026 | 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM
Pier 39, San Francisco
B2B Founders Sail in the Bay on Partiful
You could spend another evening standing around a hotel bar with a name tag, or you could network on a boat. We chose the boat for you because this one brings B2B SaaS founders and the VCs who back them onto the San Francisco Bay.
Why attend?
The niche is the point.
You're not walking into a room of every type of startup under the sun. The event is specifically for B2B SaaS founders at Seed, Series A, and beyond, plus B2B SaaS investors.
That makes it easier to have conversations that get past, “So, what do you do?”
What to expect
Check-in and boarding starts at 5:00 PM.
The boat returns at 7:00 PM.
That's basically the agenda. Get on the boat, meet people, talk business, enjoy the Bay.
The event is presented by BDev Ventures, Western Alliance Bank, and PingCAP.
Best for: B2B SaaS founders and investors.
One thing to know: Boats leave strictly on time. Don't be the founder running down the pier at 5:07.
4. What Founders Get Wrong (& Right) When Hiring Founding Teams
October 5, 2026 | 5:30 PM to 8:30 PM
San Francisco
Founding Teams event on Partiful
Your first few hires don't feel like a big deal when you're desperate for help. Then six months later, you're wondering how one person became a company-wide problem.
This session gets into the part of startup building nobody wants to talk about after the job offer is signed: what happens when you get your founding team wrong.
Why attend?
Because hiring your first people is less about filling roles and more about deciding who gets to shape the company with you.
The conversation covers who to hire first, how to spot talent early, and what founders should do when a founding-team hire doesn't work out.
What to expect
Katy Stover Fox, Founder and CEO of HigherPeople, sits down with two Afore Capital portfolio founders for a fireside chat.
The evening includes:
Fireside chat
Audience Q&A
Drinks and light bites
Founder networking
Best for: Founders making early hires or building their founding team.
One thing to know: It's closed-door and invite-only, with limited space.
5. Founders Dinner at Shack 15
October 5, 2026 | 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM
Shack 16, Ferry Building, San Francisco
Founders Dinner at Shack 15 on Partiful
Some networking events are built for collecting LinkedIn connections.
This one is built for sitting down and talking to people.
Luminar Ventures and Mesh Collective are bringing together founders, VCs, LPs, and founder angels for a curated dinner during Tech Week.
Why attend?
If you're tired of speed-networking your way through the week, this is the opposite approach.
The room is intentionally curated, with a Nordic and Silicon Valley network in the mix.
There's also an opportunity to hear from AI operators and meet investors and founders in a setting that gives conversations more room to breathe.
What to expect
Dinner and networking from 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM.
No packed conference agenda. No back-to-back presentations.
Just a curated room and a long evening to meet people.
Best for: Founders looking for investors, founders, and international connections.
One thing to know: Seats are limited.
6. Founders Flow: Yoga with a View
October 6, 2026 | 8:30 AM to 10:30 AM
San Francisco
Your Tech Week calendar doesn't need to look like:
meeting → panel → coffee → pitch → drinks → dinner → repeat.
Take two hours to breathe.
Why attend?
Because founders are still human beings, even during Tech Week.
Founders Flow gives you a chance to start the day away from another screen and another crowded networking room.
What to expect
A 45-minute yoga session with panoramic Bay views, followed by a wellness breakfast with yogurt parfaits, fresh fruit, and other bites.
You'll also have time to meet other founders in a much more relaxed setting.
Best for: Founders who want a slower start to a packed Tech Week schedule.
One thing to know: Wear something you can move in. Revolutionary advice, we know.
7. Founders Capital Summit
October 6, 2026 | 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM
San Francisco
Founders Capital Summit on Partiful
Your next milestone needs money. That doesn't automatically mean you need another equity round.
That's the entire premise of the Founders Capital Summit.
Why attend?
For health and biotech founders, this is a deep dive into funding options that sit outside the usual VC conversation.
The event covers non-dilutive capital, accelerators, corporate partnerships, government grants, philanthropic funding, tax credits, and debt.
What to expect
It's structured as five one-hour sessions:
10:00 AM: Accelerators
What they offer beyond mentorship, including funding, technical support, customer introductions, and ecosystem access.
11:00 AM: Corporate Partnerships
How startups work with pharma, medtech, health systems, payers, and other strategic partners.
1:00 PM: Government Grants
A look at SBIR/STTR and other government funding programmes.
2:00 PM: Philanthropic Grants
How foundations and nonprofit organizations fund startups.
3:00 PM: Tax Credits + Debt
Ways to extend your runway without another equity round.
Best for: Health, biotech, and other founders exploring alternative funding.
8. Before You Raise: What Investors Actually Check
October 6, 2026 | 3:00 PM to 7:00 PM
San Francisco, with a virtual option
You have the pitch deck.
You have your numbers.
You have the story.
Now, what happens when the investor's lawyer starts looking through the company?
That's what this event is about.
Why attend?
Because legal diligence is not the fun part of fundraising, which is precisely why founders tend to think about it too late.
The session covers the structural details investors look at before capital gets deployed.
What to expect
The discussion covers:
Company formation
Ownership structure
Equity
Governance
Fundraising
Data and privacy
Corporate growth
It's hosted by Ad Hoc Founders Counsel, Bagchi Law PC.
There's an in-person option in San Francisco and a virtual option for people joining from outside the Bay Area.
Best for: Founders preparing for a raise or thinking seriously about their company's structure.
9. Female Founders Happy Hour with Emmeline Ventures and Manatt
October 6, 2026 | 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM
San Francisco
Female Founders Happy Hour on Partiful
Not every useful founder conversation needs a microphone.
This happy hour brings together female founders, investors, and operators across technology, consumer, healthcare, and other high-growth sectors.
Why attend?
If you're looking to expand your network without walking into another formal pitch event, this is a good one.
Emmeline Ventures also brings a specific focus on female founders building businesses around women's health, wealth, and a cleaner, safer world.
What to expect
Food, drinks, introductions, and plenty of time to talk.
Manatt works with founders and investors across fundraising, company formation, commercial transactions, privacy, intellectual property, talent, and exits.
So there should be plenty of people in the room who understand the practical side of building a company.
Best for: Female founders, investors, and operators.
One thing to know: RSVP is required and space is limited.
10. Building What's Next: Founders & Builders Happy Hour
October 6, 2026 | 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM
San Francisco
Building What's Next on Partiful
Everyone has an AI demo now. Getting people to use it is the hard part.
This happy hour is for the people stuck in that messy middle.
Why attend?
If you're building AI products, you'll get more out of a room full of people shipping than a room full of people making predictions about what AI will do next.
The event brings together founders, VPs, product leaders, and builders to talk about turning AI prototypes into products people actually use.
What to expect
Drinks. Bites. Networking.
And conversations around real apps, real agents, product development, and everything that happens between the demo and the product launch.
No polished “AI is changing everything” keynote required.
Best for: AI founders, product leaders, VPs, and builders.
11. Female Founders Panel
October 6, 2026 | 5:30 PM to 9:00 PM
San Francisco
Female Founders Panel on Partiful
If your Tech Week goal is to meet more women building tech companies, this one gives you both structured discussion and time to mingle afterward.
Why attend?
You get two sides of the conversation in one evening: founders talking about building companies and investors talking about funding them.
That's useful if you're trying to understand both sides of the founder-investor relationship.
What to expect
The schedule looks like this:
5:30 PM: Check-in and networking
6:00 PM: Female Founder Panel
6:46 PM: Female Investor Panel
7:15 PM: Networking reception
The listing describes the event as bringing together female founders building tech startups in LA.
Best for: Female founders, investors, and people looking to meet more women in the startup ecosystem.
12. The AI Founders Table: Boardy × Women in AI
October 6, 2026 | 6:00 PM to 8:30 PM
San Francisco
The AI Founders Table on Partiful
Twenty founders.
One table.
A lot less awkward than trying to introduce yourself to 200 people in a crowded room.
The AI Founders Table brings together Seed-stage and later founders building at the technical edge of AI.
Why attend?
Because the quality of the conversation changes when everyone at the table is building.
The founders attending span enterprise, consumer, applied AI, infrastructure, and emerging categories.
If you're working on something technical and want high-context conversations with other founders, this is one to watch.
What to expect
It's a private dinner hosted by Boardy and Women in AI.
Boardy focuses on connecting founders with investors, customers, partners, talent, and other founders.
Women in AI focuses on supporting women founders, investors, and engineers working in AI.
And despite the Women in AI co-host, the dinner is all-gender.
Best for: Seed-stage and later AI founders.
One thing to know: This is a private, curated dinner, so getting on the guest list is part of the game.
Your SF Tech Week Calendar Doesn't Need to Be Full
Here's the thing about Tech Week: more events does not equal more value. You could spend the entire week collecting tote bags and LinkedIn connections.
Or you could pick a few rooms where the people, conversations, and subject matter match what your company needs right now.
Raising? Start with the funding and investor events.
Hiring? Go talk to founders who have already made the mistakes.
Building AI? Find the people shipping it.
Running B2B SaaS? Get on the boat.
And if you've been running on caffeine and four hours of sleep, go do the yoga.
The best SF Tech Week schedule is the one that leaves you with better conversations than you started with.
Running your own events? Mingloft helps you manage the planning, people, budgets, tickets, and everything in between. Try it free at mingloft.com.
Mingloft Team
Event planning insights and platform updates from the Mingloft team.
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