Built around the way your events actually run.
Eleven interviews with founders and event organizers, held before we built anything, shaped every product decision. Here is what we learned, and what we built as a result.
Startup + founder events
Give every founder a reason to show up prepared.
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 each attendee's stated goal alongside their connection and meeting counts. Attendees build a verified professional network that carries over from event to event on Kohtaa.
Used at founder meetups and startup afterwork events in Oulu, Finland. Tested with real attendees in structured feedback sessions.
Organizer view
Live connection numbers on your dashboard during the event
See pending requests and confirmed connections at a glance
Export the attendee list and an event report with connection counts after the event
Attendee view
One-tap accept or decline on mobile. No app to download.
Browse who is coming before the event starts
Post-event: endorse contacts to build your verifiable professional record
Professional networking events
Not every event is a startup event. Kohtaa works for all of them.
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.
VC + portfolio events
Let investors and founders find each other before the doors open.
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 at founder community sessions in Oulu.
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. After the event, organizers see aggregate connection and meeting numbers; individual meeting pairs stay private by default. Each attendee's record grows with every event they attend, building a verifiable investor-founder network over time.
Validated at founder community events in Oulu.
Organizer view
Live connection numbers on your dashboard during the event
See pending requests and confirmed connections at a glance
Export the attendee list and an event report with connection counts after the event
Attendee view
One-tap accept or decline on mobile. No app to download.
Browse who is coming before the event starts
Post-event: endorse contacts to build your verifiable professional record
All relationship data is stored on EU infrastructure.
Every interaction, meeting, and endorsement is stored on Hetzner servers in Helsinki, Finland. 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.
“I interviewed eleven founders 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.”
Curtis Thomas
Founder, Kohtaa
Solutions by type of event
Pick the kind of event you run.
Startup events
Founder evenings and startup meetups: join by link, see who is there, confirm who you met.
Investor days
Pitching events and investor days: investors request meetings with a time and a table, both sides confirm.
City innovation offices
For city and regional business teams: order per event, with answers to the usual data-protection review questions.
Universities
Business evenings, demo days and partner events: join by link, in Finnish or English.
Corporate conferences
B2B conferences: delegates book 1:1 meetings, and you get the counts afterwards.
See how Kohtaa fits your next event.
Create your event, or talk to us if you are planning something larger.