Scheduled · 20–22 September 2026 · Tbilisi
Expo Georgia, Tbilisi, late September 2026. The leading startup summit in Georgia, where the wider GITA-supported cohort, regional founders, product teams and visiting regional CIS, EU and UAE investor community meet on home turf. We plan apparel, giveaways, lead gifts and VIP kits for the home-side Georgia programme.
Tbilisi Startup Summit is the leading startup summit in Georgia, and for a Tbilisi-based founder, product team or investor it is the rare home-side date on the regional calendar. The audience is a mix of regional founders, GITA-supported cohort members, product teams, and visiting regional CIS, EU and UAE investor community, most of whom already know the brand names. The merch mix that works on an Expo Georgia stand is one that reads clean, says something about the brand in under a glance, and gives the team something useful to hand over after a substantive conversation.
For a Tbilisi-based team the production decision is the easiest of the year. Apparel, paper, tote bags and pens can run on a Tbilisi production line with a express QC visit; electronics and drinkware come from a regional partner with Tbilisi delivery experience; the consignment is on the stand with margin to spare. The freight window is hours, not days.
Expo Georgia is a controlled-delivery address. The freight route, the loading window and the on-site contact all need to be cleared with the organiser, and a Tbilisi hotel or local office is a sensible fallback when access rules are tight. For most Caucasus teams, the Tbilisi Startup Summit programme is planned alongside a Tbilisi office handover, a partner dinner in Vera or Vake, and a wider delegation of visiting CIS, EU and UAE investors.
Polos and T-shirts in two colourways, plus a lightweight zip layer for the often-cool late-September Tbilisi air-conditioned halls. Sizes run across the full booth team. Name plates in English and a Georgia or partner-network mark on the sleeve are standard.
Lanyards with badge category colour, heavy cotton tote bags with internal pocket, A5 notebooks with pen loop, metal ballpoint pens, and 500ml insulated bottles. Quantities sized for full three-day hand-out across the Expo Georgia floor.
10,000 mAh power banks, USB-C cables, slim cardholders and the occasional branded AirPods-style case. Reserved for qualified founder-investor conversations and stored behind the counter.
A6 leather-look notebooks with metal pen, compact gift boxes with Georgian-origin items for visiting regional managers and European investors, slim cardholders for the speaker pack. Delivered by hand to the named contact.
The Tbilisi production lane is short and well-understood. Apparel, paper, tote bags and pens run from a Tbilisi or Batumi production line, often with a express QC visit and a Tbilisi express pickup. Electronics, drinkware and metal items come from a regional partner with Tbilisi delivery experience; the consignment is consolidated at Expo Georgia in a single window.
Expo Georgia is treated as a restricted delivery address: the freight route, the loading window and the on-site contact all need to be cleared with the organiser. For most Caucasus teams, the Tbilisi Startup Summit programme uses a Tbilisi hotel or local office as a fallback when the venue loading window is tight, and a small final-mile shuttle brings the consignment onto the stand on day zero.
Customs paperwork is not relevant for a Tbilisi-internal consignment, but production artwork must be checked against the Tbilisi Startup Summit exhibitor manual for size limits, restrictions on flash-printed materials and rules for any item that goes near a live equipment demonstration. A garment that doubles as a hi-vis layer for a stand technician needs to clear both the brand spec and the venue PPE spec.
For the wider Caucasus startup-show pattern, see the G GATE Conf Tbilisi 2026 brief (the home-side iGaming programme) and the PR Tech Camp 2026 — Batumi page (the home-side Black Sea marketing conference). For the Tbilisi merch fulfilment overview, see the Tbilisi merch fulfilment overview.
For a Tbilisi-based founder or product team, running a stand at Tbilisi Startup Summit at Expo Georgia is the cleanest home-side startup programme of the year. The summit itself is the easy part: Expo Georgia provides clean booth builds, standard booth power, and shared Wi-Fi across the three-day programme. What the team controls is the merch layer over the shell, and the merch layer is what survives the home-side programme better if it was planned with Tbilisi express pickup and a Tbilisi-or-Batumi production line in mind from day one.
The most common Tbilisi Startup Summit merch pattern we see from Georgian founder teams falls into three buckets. The first is the home-courier run: a single account manager walks or drives across Tbilisi on day zero with the full booth allocation in a couple of large bags. This pattern works for a small booth and an order below roughly 30 kg; the merch has to be light, durable and well-packed to survive the trip from the production line to the Expo Georgia loading window. The second is the split plan that we recommend for most Caucasus teams: apparel, paper, tote bags and pens produced on a Tbilisi or Batumi production line with a express QC visit and a Tbilisi express pickup, electronics, drinkware and metal items from a regional partner with Tbilisi delivery experience. The third is the partner-stock pattern: a regional partner holds a pre-built consignment at a Tbilisi warehouse, and the team arrives with carry-on apparel only, picking up the rest on day zero.
The home-side split plan is the most resilient for Tbilisi Startup Summit. It survives a Tbilisi traffic delay (because the apparel can be re-routed via a different vehicle from the production line), survives a Tbilisi production-line hiccup (because the electronics allocation is sourced inside the region), and survives an Expo Georgia venue delivery rule change (because the regional partner usually knows the new rule faster than a single supplier does). The trade-off is cost: a split plan is more expensive per unit than a single consolidated consignment, but the consistency gain is real for the team that has to be on the stand on day one.
For Tbilisi-based teams that combine Tbilisi Startup Summit with a wider partner swing through Georgia — typically Tbilisi, a partner dinner in Vera or Vake, and a short visit to Mtskheta or the Kakheti wine region — the merch programme can be planned as a multi-leg consignment. The Expo Georgia stand allocation is the main share; a smaller reserve is held at the team's Tbilisi hotel for partner dinners; and a return set is held back for delegation members who travel on. The hotel-reserve pattern is what lets the team talk about a Caucasus-deliverable programme without carrying the full booth allocation to every dinner.
The Tbilisi Startup Summit audience overlaps more with the regional CIS, EU and visiting UAE investor and startup ecosystem than with the broader conference crowd. That means the merch brief is closer to a regional startup brief than a generic startup brief: the booth team is talking to founders, product teams, GITA-supported cohort members, investor representatives and the visiting wider regional CIS, EU and UAE investor community, most of whom already know the brand names, and who decide whether to stop within a few seconds of seeing the stand. The merch that survives that test is one that reads clean, says something about the brand in under a glance, and gives the team something useful to hand over after a substantive conversation.
For most Caucasus teams the apparel layer is the cleanest place to make a brand statement. A polo in two colourways, a lightweight zip layer for the often-cool late-September Tbilisi air-conditioned halls, and a T-shirt for the floor team cover the main team rotations; sizes run across XS to XXL because the Tbilisi Startup Summit audience brings a wider founder-and-investor team profile than the typical regional conference. The booth number on the back of the polo is standard, and a subtle Georgian or partner-network mark on the sleeve reinforces the home-side brand position without dominating the design.
The giveaway layer needs two distinct splits. The general giveaway (two thirds of the consignment) covers lanyards, tote bags, notebooks, pens and 500ml insulated bottles, sized for full three-day hand-out across the Expo Georgia floor. The reserved lead-capture allocation (one third) covers power banks, USB-C cables, slim cardholders and the occasional branded AirPods-style case, and stays behind the counter for qualified founder-investor conversations. The split matters because it forces the team to make a deliberate choice about who gets the reserved allocation, and that choice is where most of the post-show follow-up happens.
The VIP and speaker layer is the smallest allocation but the highest-touch. A6 leather-look notebooks with a slim metal pen, compact gift boxes with Georgian-origin items (Mtavruli-branded honey, Mukhrani or Tsinandali wines, adjika from the Kakheti region, or premium brandies from the parent Partnership Fund portfolio), and slim cardholders for the speaker pack make up the kit. The kit is delivered by hand to the named contact, and the delivery moment is often the most useful conversation slot of the day for the team.
Apparel, paper, tote bags and pens — yes, and we usually recommend it for the home-side programme. Electronics, drinkware and metal items come from a regional partner with Tbilisi delivery experience. The consignment is consolidated at Expo Georgia in a single window.
Two thirds general giveaway (lanyards, totes, pens, small notebooks) sized for full three-day hand-out, and one third reserved for lead-capture gifts handed over after a qualified founder-investor conversation.
Yes, and at a Tbilisi conference it is especially useful. A bilingual Georgian–English mark on a sleeve, a back-of-tee imprint, or a packaging insert in Georgian reinforces the home-side brand position. We check artwork against the Tbilisi Startup Summit exhibitor manual before submission.
No. Corp-Merch is an independent supplier that helps participating companies prepare their own merch. It does not organise, sponsor or represent Tbilisi Startup Summit, Expo Georgia or any partner venue linked to the programme.
Corp-Merch is an independent supplier to participating companies. This page is for exhibitors planning their own Tbilisi Startup Summit merch programme; it does not represent the organiser, Expo Georgia, the venue or any sponsor.