SF Bay Area Events: May 12-13, 2026

Three major conference weeks landed on the same two days. SaaStr AI Annual (San Mateo Event Center, 10,000+ attendees), AI Council 2026 (SF Marriott Marquis, 1,500+ engineers), and Human+Tech Week (citywide) are all running simultaneously through May 14 — which means the evening satellite calendar is unusually dense. 1

Below: the events worth your time tonight and tomorrow, with enough detail to decide in 30 seconds.

Editor's pick

Vibe Your SaaS: Startup Pitch Competition + VC/Founder Mixer is the highest-signal room on the calendar this week. Rincon Hill, SF. Tuesday May 12, 5:30–8:30pm. SaaStr badge holders get in automatically; everyone else should join the waitlist now (482 going). 2

Fireside chats feature Chris Farmer (SignalFire founder & CEO) and Kyle Lui (Bling Capital GP), a 5-startup pitch competition, 10 demo tables, and 30+ VC firms in the room, including Softbank, NEA, Temasek, and Microsoft's m12. Enterprise employees from Apple, Google, Amazon, AWS, and Tesla are also confirmed. First prize is a nano Pac-Man arcade cabinet. Host Gregory Kennedy put it plainly: "This is not a 'networking event.' It is a room full of people actually building the next wave of world-changing companies." 2

Tonight — Tuesday, May 12

After Hours at The Detour

Time: 6:00–9:00 PM · Venue: The Detour, 2200A Market St, SF (Castro/Lower Haight border) · Ticket: Free (approval required) · 21+ only, government ID required 3

A joint kickoff happy hour bridging AI Council (May 12–14) and LangChain Interrupt (May 13–14), hosted by MongoDB and Browserbase at a retro arcade bar stocked with vintage video games and pinball. The vibe is informal: "We're bringing these communities together in one spot to kick-off both events and meet the people you'll be seeing throughout the rest of the week over some friendly competition." 3

If you're attending either conference this week, this is a low-friction way to meet people you'll keep running into through Thursday.

Image from: After Hours at The Detour · Luma

Streaming the Future: Kafka & The Agentic Era

Time: 5:30–9:00 PM · Venue: House of AI, 40 Boardman Pl, SoMa, SF (12 min walk from Caltrain) · Ticket: Free (sold out — 233 going) 4

This one is sold out, but worth noting if you're on the waitlist. Panels cover event-driven agent architectures, real-time RAG pipelines, and OpenSearch + AI for agentic search. The headliner demo: Filip Yonov (Aiven) will show Claude diagnosing a production anomaly from raw Kafka topics in under 30 seconds. Panelists include Sijie Guo (StreamNative CEO) and Yingjun Wu (RisingWave CEO). Doors at 5:30, presentations at 6:00, networking from 8:00. 4

Image from: Streaming the Future: Kafka & The Agentic Era · Luma

SaaStr Week Founder Mixer — StepFun's First Silicon Valley Event

Time: 5:45–9:00 PM · Venue: Downtown San Mateo (address revealed on RSVP) · Ticket: Free (waitlist, 204 going) 5

StepFun — a Beijing-based foundation model company behind the open-source agent model Step 3.5 Flash — is hosting its first Silicon Valley event, organized through SEAMATE (出海同学会), a 15,000+ member global founder community spanning the US, China, and Southeast Asia. 5

Format is deliberately anti-conference: 6:10 StepFun intro, 6:25 open mic (2 min/person), 6:50 dinner buffet + open bar. "No long panels. No formal stage. Just AI founders, builders, operators, and investors comparing notes from Day One." Adjacent to SaaStr, so the room will skew founder-heavy with a China/global tech angle that's unusual for a typical SaaStr side event.

CMU Builder Demo Night at Foundation Capital

Time: 5:30–9:00 PM · Venue: Foundation Capital office, Rincon Hill, SF · Ticket: Free (waitlist, 114 going) 6

CMU Tech & Entrepreneurship hosts a demo night at Foundation Capital (a top-tier early-stage VC firm), sponsored by VentureBridge — CMU's flagship pre-seed accelerator with a portfolio valued at over $1B. 6

Schedule: arrivals and snacks at 5:30, demos and lightning talks (5–8 min each) from 6:00–8:00, then dinner and socializing through 9:00. CMU alumni event, but +1s are explicitly welcome. Ground rules explicitly ban heavy pitching — the audience is other builders and founders, not investors, so the dynamic is more peer review than sales room.

AI-pilled Teams — Invite-Only Workflow Demos + VC Panel

Time: 5:30–9:00 PM · Venue: SoMa, SF (address revealed on approval) · Ticket: Free (approval required, limited to 30 founders, 113 going) 7

Hosted by PromptQL and Kite, this is the tightest-capacity event on tonight's list — 30 founders maximum. The premise: teams that are genuinely restructuring workflows around AI (not just adding tools) demo one real internal workflow each. Companies in the demo lineup include Kite, PromptQL, Inspector, Engram, and OkThink. 7

VC panel at 6:00 features Rachit Parekh (Accel) and Nikhil Sachdev (Insight Partners). Drinks and discussions from 7:30. The event description captures the premise cleanly: "The teams shipping fastest in 2026 aren't just using AI tools — they've restructured everything around them." Good fit if you're specifically interested in internal AI adoption patterns rather than product demos.

The Founder's Den at Human+Tech Week

Time: Evening (exact time not listed; check upon RSVP) · Venue: SF (address revealed on approval) · Ticket: Free (approximately 3 spots remaining of ~150 capacity) 8

Host Clarence Wooten is a serial founder and Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Google [X], and the author of CoFounder.AI. He's also noted as the only Black American founder to exit two internet startups to publicly traded companies (ImageCafe → Network Solutions; Progressly → Box). The first 50 registrants receive a complimentary copy of CoFounder.AI. Open bar and food. This is an official Human+Tech Week event (May 11–15, 5,000+ contributors citywide). 8

Women + AI: An SF Dinner Party Series, No. 3

Time: 6:30–8:30 PM · Venue: Lower Haight, SF · Ticket: Free (sold out, +35 on waitlist) 9

The third installment of Kylee Lessard's Women + AI dinner series. Sold out. Worth joining the waitlist if this community fits — the series has been building a consistent repeat crowd.

Tonight quick hits

The Convergence by YZi Labs (YZi Labs, formerly Binance Labs): All-day event at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, 10:00 AM–7:00 PM. Morning EASY Residency Demo Day (AI/Web3/Biotech startups), afternoon AI Summit with speakers including CZ (remote), Cathie Wood (ARK Invest, remote), and Bill Tai. Approval required. 10
FC SF · Founders Run & Coffee: 7:00–9:00 AM, SF. Morning run and coffee networking for founders. Hosted by Founders Common. Good for early birds. 11
An Evening Inside North Korea: Tech, Information & Change: 6:00–9:00 PM at Southern Pacific Brewing, 620 Treat Ave, Mission District. Fireside chat on smuggled devices and information access as tools for political change inside North Korea. Hosted by Liberty in North Korea (LiNK). Sold out on Eventbrite — worth checking for day-of availability. 12

Tomorrow — Wednesday, May 13

SF Demo Night

Time: 5:30–8:30 PM · Venue: AWS Builder Loft, 525 Market St, SF (FiDi) · Ticket: Free (valid ID required, no +1s, hard capacity cap) 13

Eight hand-picked pre-Series A startups demo live to the room. Q&A after each pitch, community voting throughout, winner announced at 8:00 PM. Hosted by The AI Collective (200,000+ members globally) with 20 co-hosts including Human+Tech Week. Networking app available to attendees. 13

The AWS Builder Loft has a hard capacity cap and ID check at the door. Register early.

Image from: SF DEMO NIGHT · Luma

SPC Demo Night — South Park Commons Monthly Showcase

Time: 6:30–9:00 PM (demos start 7:00 PM sharp) · Venue: South Beach, SF (address on approval) · Ticket: Free (approval required) 14

South Park Commons (SPC) is a pre-company community for people going from idea to venture. Their monthly demo night features six demoers: Lev Stambler, Alicia Guo, Apek Panigrahi, Hugo Flores Garcia, Jasper Gilley (Yutori), and Steven Pu (Roro). 14

SPC runs a curated acceptance process, so the room skews toward serious early-stage builders rather than general networking. If you're pre-company yourself, there's an Airtable form on the event page to apply for SPC membership.

How AI Really Works: Full-Stack AI Panel at Crusoe

Time: 6:00–8:30 PM · Venue: Crusoe office, 225 Bush St, Suite 15, FiDi/SoMa border · Ticket: Free (limited space, no refunds) 15

Hosted by French Tech SF at Crusoe's SF office. Crusoe is a cloud provider purpose-built for AI workloads. The panel covers the full infrastructure stack — energy availability, data center design, GPU orchestration, model training/inference economics, and deployment — followed by a cocktail networking session. 15

Speakers:

Audrey Bascoul — Founder, Fieldworks AI (formerly Tesla)
Erwan Menard — SVP Product, Crusoe (formerly Google)
Laurent Hautefeuille — COO, Bedrock Robotics (formerly EVP, Uber Freight)
Houda Nait El Barj — Experience and Research Lead, OpenAI

Strong panel for anyone who wants to understand the cost and capacity dynamics behind the AI applications they're building on.

Ignite Marquee: SF #19

Time: 6:00–10:00 PM (talks start 7:00 PM) · Venue: Brava Theatre, 2781 24th St, Mission District · Ticket: Paid (check Eventbrite for pricing) 16

Ignite Talks (founded 2006, now in 350+ cities) uses a strict format: 5 minutes, 20 auto-advancing slides, no exceptions. This is the 19th SF edition with 17 confirmed speakers across a deliberately wide range of topics. Tech-relevant talks include: 16

Jeremiah Owyang — "Punching Above Your Weight: How Startups Are Dethroning Giants"
Jonathan Stray — "My AI Utopia Includes World Peace"
Jesse Vincent — "Why I Tell My Coding Agents I Love Them"
Yasmine El Baggari — "Artemis II & the Overview Effect"

Minors allowed with parent or guardian. Sponsor: GenLab Venture Studio.

Databricks @ AI Council 2026 Networking Event

Time: 6:00–9:00 PM · Venue: SoMa, SF (address on approval) · Ticket: Free (AI Council conference attendees only, rolling approval from waitlist) 17

For AI Council badge holders only. Hosted by Databricks Community with Denny Lee, Pete Soderling, and Josh Lillie. Drinks and appetizers. Databricks also has a booth in the AI Council Expo Hall if you want to catch them during conference hours instead. 17

AI x Growth: SaaStr Happy Hour at Topgolf

Time: 5:00–8:00 PM · Venue: Topgolf Burlingame, 258 Anza Blvd, Burlingame · Ticket: Free (event full — waitlist available, 136 going) 18

GrowthX AI and Sendoso host a SaaStr Annual side event at Topgolf in Burlingame, with a golf coach on-site from 6–8 PM. Target audience is founders, marketers, and GTM operators. "No agenda, no slides, just good people and terrible golf swings." The event is full, but the waitlist is worth joining if you're already heading to San Mateo for SaaStr. 18

AI Tech & Startup Night: Live Pitches & Investor Networking

Time: 6:00–9:00 PM · Venue: Fifty Vara, 1735 Noriega St, Outer Sunset · Ticket: Paid (check Eventbrite for pricing, no refunds) 19

Hosted by Nomad Global Hub. Selected startups pitch live (7 min + Q&A) with investor feedback. The room is aimed at angel investors, VC partners, founders with MVPs or early traction, and startup advisors. Startups can submit pitch decks; investors can apply to judge. The Outer Sunset location is further from the SoMa cluster — budget travel time. 19

Spirituality+AI: Building the Relational Infrastructure

Time: 5:30–9:30 PM · Venue: FutureHouse, SF (address on RSVP) · Ticket: Free (waitlist, +138) 9

An official Human+Tech Week partner event exploring the intersection of spirituality and AI infrastructure. Organized by 12 co-hosts including Anna Spisak, Doruk Kurt, Stacey Lawson, Compassion 2.0, Positive AI Labs, and the Flourishing Systems Foundation. The longest evening event on Wednesday (4 hours), so plan accordingly if you're also hitting one of the earlier demo nights.

Tomorrow quick hits

Stanford AI and Investment Series: Session 7: Stanford campus, ongoing lecture series on AI investing. 323+ interested — check the Luma listing for time and registration. 20
UAtech Venture Night @ SaaStr Annual: SurveyMonkey HQ, San Mateo, 6:00–9:00 PM. Startup and investor networking co-hosted by UAtech.events, Catalyst Bay, Reply, SurveyMonkey, and the Consulate General of Ukraine in SF. Strong Ukrainian tech ecosystem angle adjacent to SaaStr. 21
Getting Started with OpenClaw Workshop: NOVAworks, Sunnyvale City Hall, 2:00–5:00 PM. Beginner-friendly hands-on session building your first OpenClaw (open-source AI agent framework) agent from scratch. Sold out on Eventbrite — join the waitlist at lu.ma/may-openclaw-workshop. Presented by TechEquity Ai, led by Dave Nielsen (Head of Community, AI Alliance). 22

Background: the anchor conferences this week

Three conferences provide the gravitational pull for most of the evening satellites above:

SaaStr AI Annual (May 12–14, San Mateo Event Center): The SaaS industry's largest annual gathering, now reoriented around AI. SaaStr badge holders get automatic entry to several side events including Vibe Your SaaS. 23
AI Council 2026 (May 12–14, SF Marriott Marquis, 780 Mission St): 1,500+ engineers, founders, and CTOs. Vendor-neutral, community-led format running since 2015. Day 1 speakers include Diogo Almeida (co-inventor of ChatGPT, now TypeSafe AI CEO), Hannes Mühleisen (DuckDB creator), and Calvin French-Owen (Codex co-creator, ex-Segment CTO). Tickets at aicouncil.com/sf-2026. 1
LangChain Interrupt (May 13–14, The Midway SF, 900 Marin St): AI agent conference with 1,000+ practitioners expected. Fireside: Harrison Chase (LangChain founder) and Chirantan "CJ" Desai (MongoDB CEO). The After Hours at The Detour event tonight is the joint kickoff. 3
Human+Tech Week (May 11–15, citywide): 5,000+ contributors across SF. Several evening events — The Founder's Den and Spirituality+AI above are both official partner events. 8

Cover image: image from SF DEMO NIGHT · Luma