Startup Exchange 2026: what happens next
Through our Startup Exchange programme, we brought eight startups from the US, the UK, Brazil and Norway to Stavanger during ONS 2026. Throughout the week we booked 1:1 meetings with potential partners and customers.
This is the second year we’ve run Startup Exchange. It started at ONS 2024, when we teamed up with Greentown Labs in Houston and Startuplab in Oslo to bring six climate tech companies to Stavanger. In 2025 we flipped the direction: four Norwegian startups travelled with us to Houston Climate and Energy Startup Week, pitching to Equinor and Woodside Energy and presenting to a crowd of 300+.
The point has never been the stage time. It’s what happens after - the follow-up meetings, the introductions, the deals that take shape once everyone’s back home. That’s why we keep doing this: connecting the right startups with the companies, investors and decision-makers who can turn good technology into real business.
Eight companies, four countries
This year’s cohort was ATS Energy, BiaTech Corporation, Fennex, Lean Decom, NOR Space Intelligence, Pix Force, Monitorai and Novatech - brought to Stavanger together with Greentown Labs, who brought the US companies, CodeBase, who brought the UK companies, and Brazil’s IBP and ANP. An ongoing strike delayed a couple of arrivals by a day, but by the time ONS opened, all eight were in Stavanger and ready to go.
Where the week actually went
More than one of this year’s companies called it one of the best conferences they’ve been to. Across the week, meetings opened up with Shell, Equinor, TotalEnergies and Stavanger’s city council, alongside real traction back home: existing customer relationships built on, and new pilot conversations already underway.
And two of the eight took it a step further: Pix Force and BiaTech competed as finalists in the Startup World Cup Stavanger pitch competition, with BiaTech placing as runner-up.
The work continues
By the end of the week, several conversations had already moved into follow-up meetings. That’s always been the point of Startup Exchange - not the pitches themselves, but what happens after. The programme runs together with Equinor, with support from Agenda Vestlandet.
The follow-through continues: Pia Warland and Elianne Strøm Topstad will travel on to Aberdeen to meet CodeBase and explore what a Norway-Scotland Startup Exchange collaboration could look like, visiting ONE TechHub, Robert Gordon University, ONE BioHub, the University of Aberdeen, Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult, Net Zero Technology Centre, Energy Transition Zone and Invest Aberdeen along the way.
Want to meet one of this year’s Startup Exchange companies? Reach out to Elianne at elianne@innovationdock.no or +47 926 42 583 and she’ll take it from there.