Ten Years of Spark Festival – 2025 Opening Celebration

Celebrate the tenth anniversary of Australia's largest startup event – join the Hon Malcolm Turnbull AC and special guests from across the innovation ecosystem.

• When: 5:30pm for a 6pm start, Monday 27 October 2025

• Where: The Collider at Tech Central, 477 Pitt Street, Haymarket

• 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.

The opening night is the highlight of the festival week – and this year, we are delighted to host the 29th Prime Minister of Australia, the Hon Malcolm Turnbull AC, who will join us to look back at the successes of the last decade of Australian innovation, and ahead at the opportunities and challenges facing the Australian tech sector.

Mr Turnbull served as Prime Minister from 2015 to 2018 as our startup ecosystem grew exponentially. He is a passionate supporter of Australian innovation and entrepreneurship; and he has founded, co-founded and invested in many startups himself, in sectors including the internet, software, mining and financial services.

Mr Turnbull will speak alongside a range of special guests who have served tirelessly as leaders of our startup ecosystem – to be announced soon!

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.