What I Saw At The Party Attended By 4,500 Techies, VCs, And Entrepreneurs In Downtown San Francisco

Startup and Tech Mixer is not your typical, boring, grab-a-bunch-of-business-cards and make small talk networking function.

Held on three floors at San Francisco's W Hotel, the barely year-old event is part conference with a dash of networking, an exhibition for new startups, with lots of alcohol thrown in. And, it's also a lot of fun.

"It's important to create an all-inclusive vibe," said Ari Kalfayan, who helped start the mixer a year ago with a few friends, having just 75 people showing up to the first event.

Now the event has certainly grown up, with Kalfayan telling Business Insider that the mixer on Friday hosted roughly 4,500 attendees, all mixing and mingling between speakers, bars, games, and yes, even a bounce house.