Nine structured interviews with Finnish event organizers shaped every product decision. Here is what we learned, and what we built as a result.
Startup + Founder Events
The problem
The right introductions happen by chance, not design.
Startup events produce hundreds of possible connections. Without a system, attendees network with whoever is standing closest. The founders who needed to meet each other often never do.
What Kohtaa does
Set a goal. Meet the right people.
Attendees set a goal on signup: find a cofounder, meet investors, build partnerships. They can browse and filter who else is attending before the event starts. Every confirmed meeting adds to their 7 Points of Contact journey toward a trusted relationship.
The outcome
A verified professional network that persists.
Organizers see which attendees achieved their goals. Attendees build a verified professional network that carries over from event to event on Kohtaa. The relationship layer runs continuously between events.
Used at founder meetups and startup afterwork events in Oulu, Finland. Tested with real attendees across two structured feedback sessions.
Organizer view
Meeting matrix visible in real-time on your dashboard
See acceptance rate, pending requests, and confirmed connections at a glance
Export the full relationship graph after the event
Attendee view
One-tap accept or reject on mobile. No app download required.
Browse who is coming before the event starts
Post-event: endorse contacts to build your verifiable professional record
Professional Networking Events
Kohtaa started in the startup ecosystem but the relationship problem is not startup-specific. AI lunches, innovation workshops, alumni events, professional association meetups. Anywhere people attend with a specific goal and leave with a business card they forget about the next day, Kohtaa is the solution.
Works for any professional event format:
AI and technology lunches
Innovation and research workshops
Alumni and alumni association events
Professional association meetups
Corporate networking sessions
Accelerator demo days
7 Points of Contact
The relationship problem is the same regardless of event format.
Whether it is a startup afterwork or a university alumni dinner, the gap between meeting someone once and building a trusted professional relationship is the same: repeated, positive interactions over time.
Kohtaa tracks each attendee's 7 Points of Contact journey across every event they attend, regardless of event type. The relationship layer is persistent.
VC + Portfolio Events
The problem
Introductions left to chance.
VC community events produce hundreds of possible investor-founder pairs. Without a system, introductions depend on who is standing next to whom at the coffee table.
Validated across four Founders of Oulu sessions.
What Kohtaa does
Schedules before the doors open.
Attendees declare their role (Founder, VC Partner, Angel) and what they are looking for on signup, then browse who else is attending and request meetings with a proposed time slot. Investors can arrive with meetings already confirmed, not a room to navigate.
The outcome
Every confirmed meeting builds the trust graph.
Confirmed meetings are stored as trust graph edges, visible to organizers post-event. The relationship data accumulates across events, building a verifiable investor-founder network over time.
Validated across Founders of Oulu community events.
Organizer view
Meeting matrix visible in real-time on your dashboard
See acceptance rate, pending requests, and confirmed connections at a glance
Export the full relationship graph after the event
Attendee view
One-tap accept or reject on mobile. No app download required.
Browse who is coming before the event starts
Post-event: endorse contacts to build your verifiable professional record
All relationship data stays on EU infrastructure.
Every interaction, meeting, and endorsement is stored on Hetzner EU nodes. Attendees can request a full export of their personal data at any time under GDPR Article 20. Your legal team can verify this at kohtaa.com/enterprise.
Why we built this
“I ran structured interviews with nine founders, ecosystem builders, and event organisers across Oulu before writing a single line of code. The recurring bottleneck was not the event itself. It was everything that failed to happen after the event ended.”
CT
Curtis Thomas
Founder, Kohtaa
Start free, or talk to us if you are planning something larger.