Month 01May ’25
The first scribble
Two operators, one whiteboard, one stubborn idea: kill the deck, save the room. Palooza gets a name, a logo, and a Notion doc.
0 founders · 1 deck killed
About Palooza
We make capital exciting
again.
Palooza is the global elevator-pitching championship — a sold-out show, a film studio, and a follow-on fund, all built around the most useful sixty seconds in a founder's life.
$48M
Raised by alumni
01180+
Founders staged
024
Cities on tour
03100%
Sold-out shows
04Palooza HQ · London · Est. 2025
Operators✦Producers✦Storytellers✦Investors✦Showrunners✦Founders✦Operators✦Producers✦Storytellers✦Investors✦Operators✦Producers✦Storytellers✦Investors✦Showrunners✦Founders✦Operators✦Producers✦Storytellers✦Investors✦
Origin & mission
Born from a simple frustration.
The best founders rarely meet the right investors. And when they do, the format is broken — sixty slides, twenty minutes, zero memory the next morning.
London · 2025
The first night.
01 — Origin
A coalition, not a conference.
Founded in 2025 by a coalition of operators, journalists and event producers, Palooza turned the dusty pitch competition into a sold-out show. What started as a single night in London is, twelve months on, a four-city circuit with its own studio and follow-on fund in motion.
02 — Mission
Compress the distance.
Between an extraordinary idea and the people who can fund it. Sixty seconds is not a constraint — it's a forcing function for clarity, conviction and consequence.
60s
Per pitch
200+
Investors per show
0
Slides allowed
Manifesto
The pitch deck is dead.
Long live the room.
Four principles we run every show, every cut, every hire against.
01
Show, don't pitch.
Every decision — venue, font weight, lighting cue — is in service of founders being taken seriously.
02
Sixty seconds, no excuses.
Constraint is the creative act. If it can't be said in a minute, it isn't ready for a room.
03
The room is the product.
We obsess over who's in the audience, where they sit, and what they hear in the hour before doors.
04
Founders before format.
When the script and the human disagree, we cut the script.
Our story
Twelve months. One obsession.
From a whiteboard in May ’25 to a sold-out Final at the Emirates — the first year of Palooza, in six moves.
01year in
and only getting louder
- Month 04Aug ’25
Lights up in London
120 seats. 14 founders. One standing ovation. The first Palooza night sells out in 48 hours and breaks the format wide open.
14 founders · 1 night - Month 07Nov ’25
The film studio
We build a studio above a pub in Shoreditch and ship the first batch of 60-second pitch films. They hit 4M views in three weeks.
4M+ views - Month 10Feb ’26
Going multi-city
NYC and Lisbon join the circuit. 60 founders raise a combined $48M within 90 days of stage. The room becomes a habit.
$48M raised - Month 12Apr ’26
The first Final
Our debut World Final at Emirates Stadium. 1,800 attendees. The format every founder now wants to crack.
1,800 in the room - Year 02Now
What’s next
Palooza Ventures, four more cities, and the first Asia leg of the tour. We’re twelve months in and we’re only getting louder.
Year two, loading
The directors
The people running the room.
Operators, producers and investors. Six directors. One unreasonable standard.
MO
Director / 01 LondonMOMaya Okonkwo
Co-founder & Creative Director
Ex-BBC Films producer. Spent a decade making founders look human on camera before Palooza existed.
IV
Director / 02 New YorkIVIdris Vance
Co-founder & CEO
Operator turned showrunner. Sold his last company to Stripe at 32, then went looking for a better way to pitch.
LS
Director / 03 LisbonLSLina Sørensen
Director of Programming
Curates the founders, the rooms, the running order. The reason every Palooza night feels inevitable.
TM
Director / 04 San FranciscoTMTheo Marchetti
Director of Investor Relations
Twelve years at Sequoia and Index. Brings the cheque-writers — and tells us which ones actually mean it.
AP
Director / 05 SingaporeAPAisha Park
Director of Film
Two-time Cannes Lions winner. Turns 60 seconds of stage time into the most-watched founder film of the week.
RC
Director / 06 São PauloRCRafael Costa
Director of Global Events
Ran live ops for the Olympics opening ceremony. Now choreographs every Palooza house — to the second.
What investors say
“Palooza is the only room where I've watched a founder go from unknown to oversubscribed before the lights came up.”
Curated
Global
Momentum
Now casting · Season 08
Want a turn under the spotlight?
Applications open year-round for our city circuit and the World Final. Selection is brutal. The room is worth it.
- Free for selected founders
- No warm intros required
- 30 founders per city, per season