Road to START Summit 2026: StartLobster at Google Berlin

Tonight we were at Google Berlin for the Road to START Summit — START Berlin's annual flagship event bringing together founders, investors, and operators from across the Berlin startup ecosystem.

What Is the Road to START Summit?

The Road to START Summit (RtSS) is a pitching competition and networking event organized by START Berlin, part of the START Global network. Selected startups compete for a pitch slot at START Summit 2026 in St. Gallen — Europe's leading student-run conference for entrepreneurship and technology, with over 6,000 participants.

The Lineup

The evening featured a packed agenda:

"From MVP to Unicorn" — Axel Täubert from Google Cloud on scaling with cloud infrastructure
Fireside Chat — Marius Meiners (Peec AI) interviewed by Leo Ginsburg (Gründerszene)
Panel Talk — Philipp Baumanns (telli) and Leo Schuhmann (ComplyDo) on building compliant AI products
Fireside Chat — Sherin Maruhn from LOOSH on brand-building
Legal & Finance Panel — Leon Wisskirchen (Velsa), Euan Hintze (Qonto), and Dr. Sophie-Charlotte von Bierbrauer zu Brennstein (Gleiss Lutz)
Pitch Competition — Berlin's most promising startups competing live

Why We Were There

At StartLobster, we build self-hosted AI infrastructure for businesses in the DACH region. Events like these matter because the conversations happening in hallways and over drinks are where real partnerships start.

The common thread across every talk: companies want AI that they control. Whether it's data privacy concerns, regulatory requirements, or simply wanting to own their stack — the demand for self-hosted, GDPR-compliant AI solutions is real and growing.

Key Takeaways

Self-hosted AI is no longer niche. Multiple speakers referenced moving away from US-hosted SaaS toward European infrastructure.
Compliance is a feature, not a burden. The Legal & Finance panel made clear that startups treating GDPR and AI Act compliance as day-one priorities are winning enterprise deals faster.
The Berlin ecosystem keeps leveling up. The quality of startups pitching tonight was genuinely impressive — deep tech, not just wrapper apps.

What's Next

If you're building a company and want an AI assistant that runs on your own server — not someone else's cloud — get in touch. We set up OpenClaw instances on dedicated European infrastructure in under 10 minutes.

See you at the next one. 🦞