Closing Celebration – Spark Festival 2025

Join the Hon. Matt Kean and the Spark Festival team for drinks – to wrap up the the tenth iteration of Australia's largest startup event.

• When: 4:30pm for a 5pm start, Friday 31 October 2025

• Where: UTS Startups @ Central, corner of Broadway and Harris Street Sydney

• Places are limited – register now to secure your spot!

Spark Festival returns for its 10th year in 2025, once again bringing a wide-ranging program of startup events to NSW from 27 October to 2 November 2025. Since 2016, Spark has connected founders, investors, unis, policymakers and hubs through hundreds of events, building a network of over 40,000 participants and sparking engagement into and across our startup ecosystem.

As we wrap up a jam-packed week of programming, we are delighted to host the Hon Matt Kean in conversation with Spark Festival Co-Lead Alexandra Hall.

Matt will share his unique perspective on tech investment, policy and regulation – not only from his current roles as Director of Wollemi Capital and Chair of the Climate Change Authority; but also from his years as a minister in the New South Wales Government, where he served as Treasurer, Energy Minister and Innovation Minister.

This year’s festival comes as startup event activity in NSW has slumped – with lack of funding leaving government-backed spaces underutilised, and founders struggling to find support. The challenge today isn’t just connecting events. The "spark" now needed is to reignite the sector.

Spark Festival 2025 is both a celebration of a decade of impact, and a rallying point to build a thriving, well-connected startup community for the future.

This year’s program will focus on six key streams of activity, reflecting the NSW Industry Policy priorities and the greatest opportunities for impact in our sector:

1. Spark Founding & Raising connects founders with investors, corporates and policymakers – the festival’s bread and butter.

2. Spark AI explores the rise of both the cutting-edge agentic economy and practical AI applications, educating the wider community on opportunities and risks.

3. Spark Startup Teams builds networks for employees beyond founders, normalising startups as career paths.

4. Spark Sustainability & Impact fosters climate tech and responsible innovation.

5. Spark Housing & Infrastructure highlights startup-led solutions for affordability and resilience.

6. The Spark Investment Network links investment-ready founders with global and diverse capital sources through exclusive events and community forums, as we have since 2023.

Spark Festival 2025 is proudly supported by the City of Sydney, Stone & Chalk, Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer, Decidr, Venture Affairs, The PR Counsel and Brilliant Communications.

By registering for this event, you grant full rights to use the images from any photography/video footage for publicity and education purposes. This may include (but is not limited to), the right to use them in their printed and online publicity, coursework presentations, social media and press releases. If you do not wish to be photographed, please inform an event organiser.