Connecting investors with the next generation of event industry businesses, IBTM Ignite, which combines investment-ready support, live pitching and structured introductions, will return to IBTM World for 2026. Delivered in partnership with growth consultancy and M&A specialist allpoints, Ignite creates a route from early potential to real commercial opportunity.
To date, Ignite has helped participating businesses secure £3.5 million in investment, demonstrating the programme’s role in turning promising ideas into sustainable growth. We speak to two of this year’s exciting start-ups taking part in the programme – Gianluca Sordano, CEO & Co-Founder at Always Friday, and Shelby Crisan, Founder at KNO Events, to discuss what IBTM Ignite means for the future success of their businesses.
Solving industry challenges
One of 30 qualified start-ups taking part in IBTM Ignite, Gianluca Sordano, CEO & Co-Founder at Always Friday, says: “The events industry is changing quickly, but the way corporate events are planned and delivered has not changed at the same pace. We started Always Friday to change that. We combine technology, AI and event expertise to make the whole process much faster. The goal is to make organising a corporate event feel as simple and fast as using any other modern service.”
Shelby Crisan, Founder at KNO Events, agrees: “I think the events industry is at an inflection point. We’ve become incredibly sophisticated in what we create for attendees, but behind the scenes, teams are still running multimillion-dollar events with spreadsheets, email chains and systems that don’t talk to each other. After 20 years producing events, I built KNO Events because I believe the operational side of our industry deserves better.”
The elevator pitch
“The idea is simple,” says Gianluca. “A company should be able to tell us what it needs and get to a finished event much faster than it can today. They can use Always Friday as a self-service platform or have our team take care of the event from start to finish. Behind both experiences, AI handles a large part of the work involved in researching options, managing requests, coordinating people and moving the event forward.
“We are also working on the other side of the market. We help venues identify and act on the opportunities that fit them, while giving them a way to benefit from requests they cannot take themselves.”
Shelby says: “We’re building the infrastructure underneath the event where the real, constantly changing operational data lives across budgets, room blocks, F&B, contracted spaces, vendors and more.” Built to give planners an intelligent view of their entire event portfolio, Shelby says it’s like “adding a teammate who knows every detail of every event, understands what needs your attention next, and can help you figure out what to do about it.”
A space to flourish
IBTM World will be the first event where Always Friday has been publicly demonstrated, and Gianluca sees it as an incredible opportunity to meet potential partners across the industry who can help them take their next steps.
“It is difficult for a young company to build relationships across an established industry from scratch,” he says. “Programmes like Ignite shorten that distance. They put founders in the room with investors and industry leaders who would otherwise take much longer to reach.”
For Shelby, the chance to gain feedback and make connections is also a key draw. “As a founder, you become incredibly close to what you’re building. Of course, we’re excited about the potential for investment, but I’m just as interested in the relationships and perspectives that come from the programme. One introduction can lead to a customer, partnership, investor or an entirely new opportunity. At this stage, those conversations can genuinely change our trajectory.”
“Some of the best ideas come from people who have spent years thinking, ‘There has to be a better way to do this.’ But having a great idea and building a scalable company around it are very different things,” says Shelby. “Programmes like Ignite help bridge that gap by connecting founders with customers, mentors, visibility and capital. If we want more innovation in events, we can’t just celebrate new ideas once they’re successful, we have to create opportunities for early ideas to become successful.”
Access to investment
More than 15 investors are expected to attend IBTM Ignite, bringing experience, networks and investment insight to the curated cohort of emerging businesses. “Investment gives a company the ability to move faster,” says Gianluca. “But the people behind that investment can be just as important. For Always Friday, we are building in a large market with a lot of complexity. Investors who understand technology, marketplaces and service businesses can help us make better decisions as we scale.”
Shelby agrees: “Access to investment can completely change the speed at which a company moves. Founders are constantly making trade-offs. Do we build this feature or that one? Hire this person or wait? Enter this market now or next year? Investment can turn some of those ‘or’ decisions into ‘and’.
“But access matters too. Investors force you to zoom out from the next feature or customer and answer a much bigger question: how big could this become?”
As one of the fifteen experienced industry investors taking part, Claire Grecian, Founder & CEO of Circle Agency, says: “Our industry thrives on fresh thinking, and the best new ideas deserve a real route to capital, mentorship and profile. That’s why I wanted to be part of IBTM Ignite. I’m keen to meet founders reinventing how we connect people at events and how we measure what live experiences really deliver. AI will be a big part of that, from smarter planning and operations to making events bolder, more personalised, accessible and generally more innovative, but always in service of why we’re there in the first place: being together, in person.”
An opportunity to hone the pitch
Selected Ignite founders will receive investment-readiness training before taking to IBTM World’s Future Stage to pitch live, with investors and audiences responding in real time, and this is one of the programme elements that both Gianluca and Shelby welcome.
“When you are building something that changes an established process, you have to be able to explain it simply,” says Gianluca. “Preparing the pitch forces us to be very clear about the problem we are solving, why the timing is right and what we have learned from our customers so far. Then comes the part I find most valuable: hearing the questions. If an investor, venue operator or event professional sees something differently from us, that is useful. Those conversations can change how we think about the product and where we take the company next.”
Shelby says: “I know the event industry and the operational problems because I’ve lived them. I also have a very clear vision for what KNO Events will become. Having people challenge how we communicate the opportunity and the bigger vision for KNO Events and then being able to take that story directly to investors, is incredibly valuable.”
A unique industry platform
For Gianluca, being part of IBTM Ignite is an opportunity to position Always Friday’s services at the centre of the meetings and events industry. “IBTM World brings together the people who make the industry work, from corporate buyers and venues to agencies, suppliers and technology companies. That is exactly where we want to be. We already have customers using Always Friday for their events, so IBTM Ignite is a chance to show a model that is already being tested in the real world.”
Shelby adds: “Ignite adds another important layer by bringing investors into that conversation. It creates this rare intersection of people who experience the problem, people building new solutions and people who can help those solutions scale. For a company trying to fundamentally change how event teams work, that’s exactly where I want KNO Events to be.”
Running across all three days of IBTM World 2026, IBTM Ignite will take place on the show floor at Fira Gran Via in Barcelona from 17-19 November 2026.
