Manchester tech events this week: Seed to Series A starts at 17:00, not 16:30
Seventeen Manchester tech events, 13-19 Nov: a reworked Seed to Series A panel at Campfield, a six-room Tuesday and four meetups at 18:00 on Thursday.
Manchester tech events this week: Seed to Series A starts at 17:00, not 16:30
Two weeks ago we told you not to turn up to From Seed to Series A at half four. Our listing still says 16:30, so here it is again: doors are 17:00 and the evening runs to 20:30. It leads this week's Manchester tech events because it belongs to the best room on the page. Seventeen events between Friday and Thursday, fifteen free to register, and twelve of them on Tuesday and Thursday.
The Big One: From Seed to Series A, Tuesday at Campfield
From Seed to Series A: What Actually Scales - Tue 17 Nov, 17:00 to 20:30, Campfield Studios, Liverpool Road, free.
<img src="https://joezfbehxxpcrpliygvo.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/hero-images/event-manchester-from-seed-to-series-a-what-actually-scales-1117.webp" alt="From Seed to Series A: What Actually Scales" class="w-full rounded-lg my-6" loading="lazy" />
Cooper Parry hosts with Exchange Accelerator. The subject: a growth engine you can repeat, a go-to-market motion you can defend, and hires that compound or cost you a year.
The panel has changed since it was announced. Mark Lyons is out. In come Ted Tavendale of Puma Growth Partners, Anish Kapoor, founder and chairman of AccessPay, and Harry Panter, co-founder and CEO of Housr. Laura Wiggins of YFM Equity Partners and Tom Watts of Cooper Parry complete it. Panel from 17:30, then a showcase of Exchange cohort businesses, then food and drinks.
Two growth investors and two founders running their own scale-ups, free. It's for founders between first revenue and a priced round, and for angels who want to know which Exchange companies deserve a follow-up coffee. Pre-product? The room will talk past you.
The week, day by day
Friday 13 and Saturday 14
AI in Ecommerce Day - Fri 13 Nov, The Lowry Hotel, Salford, paid. Our row says 10:00. Registration and coffee open at 09:00 and the first named talk, Andrew Afonin on wiring AI into Magento, HubSpot and Klaviyo, is at 10:00. Ten talks from founders running £1M to £10M brands, no agency pitches. No ticket price published.
Manchester Data Hive 2026 - Sat 14 Nov, 09:00, Copthorne Hotel, Salford Quays, free. A volunteer-run day for the Microsoft data stack: Fabric, Azure SQL, Power BI, Copilot. Two rooms of 50. No agenda yet.
Sunday and Monday are empty.
Tuesday 17: six rooms
Robotics Innovation Showcase 2026 - 09:00 to 16:30, Sister, Renold Building, free. The University of Manchester's Centre for Robotics and AI on a year of UK robotics, heavy on nuclear decommissioning and fusion. Vice-Chancellor Duncan Ivison keynotes; the first panel puts Sellafield, Amentum and Northern Gritstone on one stage.
The Future of Government Technology Show and Exhibition 2026 - 09:00, CorpAcq Stadium, Eccles, free. IGPP's day for central government, councils and the NHS. The organiser bars sales and business-development attendees.
Then Seed to Series A from 17:00, and three evening rooms against it:
- AI, Agents and the Future of Shopping - 18:00, Cross Street Chapel, free. Simon Ellis, head of AI transformation at Pets at Home, on retail once an agent does the buying.
- Northern Azure User Group November 2026 Meetup - 18:00 to 20:00, Morson Edge, Bonded Warehouse, free. Dieter Gobeyn on what an agent costs in tokens; Jaseetha Satkurunathan on multi-tenant Kubernetes.
- Building a Domain Specific Language for Acceptance tests - 18:15, Peninsula Building, free. Dot Net North on BDD beyond step definitions.
Wednesday 18
Prolific North Live 2026 - 09:00 to 16:30, Sister, £193.22. A full day on marketing and consumer behaviour into 2027. The week's one big ticket.
GM-Lausanne Corridor: Trade, Investment & Innovation Opportunities - 09:00 to 12:30, DiSH, free. Growth Hub and Innovaud on Swiss market entry and EPFL links. Request 1-1s on the registration form.
CTO Craft Mixer - 17:30 to 20:30, The Old Monkey, Portland Street, free. Our row says 18:00; the organiser's page says 17:30. No talks. CTOs, heads of engineering, drinks.
Thursday 19: two mornings, four rooms at six
- Grow your sales: The Ultimate Sales Playbook - 09:45 to 12:00, NatWest Accelerator, Spinningfields, free. Last of six workshops; open to people who skipped the rest.
- Techcelerate Coffees Manchester 79 - 10:00 to 12:00, DoubleTree Piccadilly, free. Founder-to-founder, no pitches. Places were running low when we listed it.
- Manchester November Meetup - 17:45, XYZ Works, Hardman Street, free. Data Platform User Group: Torsten Strauß on SQL tuning, Mark Pryce-Maher on Fabric Warehouse against Lakehouse. Not recorded.
- Agentic Payments : Luke Grayland & AI Engineering at Scale : Alastair Jepps - 18:00 to 20:00, Bally's Interactive, Spring Gardens, free. Grayland of Conferma on consent and liability once agents spend money; Jepps on personalisation across 700,000 players.
- Mindstone Manchester November AI Meetup - 18:00, DiSH, free. Live demos, three talks, capped at 200. Newly confirmed: Christopher Kenna on practical AI workflows.
- Cloud Native November - 18:00, Bonded Warehouse, free. Data sovereignty, and whether your disaster recovery plan recovers when you test it.
<img src="https://joezfbehxxpcrpliygvo.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/hero-images/event-manchester-agentic-payments-luke-grayland-ai-engineering-at-scale-alastair-jepps-1119.webp" alt="Agentic Payments : Luke Grayland & AI Engineering at Scale : Alastair Jepps" class="w-full rounded-lg my-6" loading="lazy" />
Who should go where
Builders: Thursday at Bally's. Agentic Payments is the sharpest engineering evening of the week: real money, real liability, protocols still being argued over. Tuesday, pick Northern Azure if you pay a cloud bill, Dot Net North if you own a test suite.
Founders: Tuesday at 17:00. Seed to Series A, then nothing else that evening. Thursday morning, Techcelerate if you need peers, the NatWest playbook if you need a document. They overlap.
Investors: Tuesday, twice. The Robotics Showcase for deep tech with Northern Gritstone already in the room, then Campfield for the Exchange cohort.
Sales and marketing: Wednesday, if the budget's there. Prolific North is the one full marketing day on the page. Free alternative: Simon Ellis at Cross Street Chapel on Tuesday, on your funnel when the shopper is software. Skip the GovTech show; they've said they don't want you.
Venue corner: Sister, two days running
Sister hosts the Robotics Showcase on Tuesday and Prolific North on Wednesday, both full days. It's the Renold Building at 32a Altrincham Street, M1 7JR, a short walk from Piccadilly station. Our own listings spell the venue several ways, so search the postcode.
FAQ corner
Can I just turn up to the Robotics Innovation Showcase?
No. Registration is expression-of-interest, so apply early and wait for the yes.
Dot Net North says waitlist. Should I bother?
Yes. Its RSVPs often hit a waitlist that usually clears before the night. Join it and keep the evening free.
Worth knowing
Thursday 18:00 is a four-way. XYZ Works, Bally's, DiSH and the Bonded Warehouse. Pick one and stay.
CTO Craft starts at 17:30. Our row has 18:00. The organiser's page wins.
Check two links before you travel. Data Hive's ticket link looked like a placeholder when we listed it. Northern Azure's agenda shows different talk titles from the speaker billing.
See you Tuesday
Seventeen rooms, and the one to protect is Tuesday at 17:00. Everything else is at anopenroom.com/manchester. Running something in Manchester we haven't listed? Send it in, and it goes in next week's edition. The newsletter lands Friday mornings.