Applications for the Startup Battlefield at Disrupt SF are now open!
The event will take place on September 21st-23rd at the lovely Pier 70. Each day of Disrupt, Startup Battlefield companies pitch for six minutes on-stage with the world watching through a live video stream. Founders then face a live question and answer session with our judges — investors, founders and CEOs. Former judges include David Lee (SV Angel), Roelof Botha (Sequoia Capital), Kevin Rose (Google Ventures), Hunter Walk (Homebrew VC), Marissa Mayer (Yahoo) and many others.
Battlefield companies also receive free demo space in Startup Alley, tickets to VIP events, a Battlefield-only reception, and of course, swag.
We’re looking for new, un-launched startups to debut on the Disrupt Stage. As Disrupt NY’s batch would indicate, we like to keep things diverse. All verticals are welcome from biotech to security, supercomputing to ecommerce, on-demand services to battery technology, mobile consumer to healthcare, bitcoin to hardware and the next big thing in dev tools.
Though our event is in San Francisco, we encourage startups from outside the Bay Area and the United States to apply. TechCrunch is not looking for the best startups in our backyard. We’re looking for the best startups period.
One of the goals of the Battlefield is to introduce our audience to startups that they’ve never heard of. Applicants should have had little to no previous press coverage. Full details on eligibility can be found here.
So who are our Battlefield companies and what do they do after launching with us?
Alfred, the Battlefield Winner at Disrupt SF 2014, raised a seed and Series A totaling $12.5 million, acquired WunWun Tech and launched “Hello Alfred,” a single text portal for all your in-home service needs.
Join 10k+ tech and VC leaders for growth and connections at Disrupt 2025
Netflix, Box, a16z, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Hugging Face, Elad Gil, Vinod Khosla — just some of the 250+ heavy hitters leading 200+ sessions designed to deliver the insights that fuel startup growth and sharpen your edge. Don’t miss the 20th anniversary of TechCrunch, and a chance to learn from the top voices in tech. Grab your ticket before doors open to save up to $444.
Join 10k+ tech and VC leaders for growth and connections at Disrupt 2025
Netflix, Box, a16z, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Hugging Face, Elad Gil, Vinod Khosla — just some of the 250+ heavy hitters leading 200+ sessions designed to deliver the insights that fuel startup growth and sharpen your edge. Don’t miss a chance to learn from the top voices in tech. Grab your ticket before doors open to save up to $444.
Recent alumni, FOVE and Peeple are flying past their Kickstarter goals.Zenefits is growing like crazy, LearnVest was acquired for $250M and Fitbit’s preparing for an IPO.
As a whole, companies that participated in Startup Battlefield have raised over $4.4B and had over 67 exits.
Building a great company encompasses much more than strong launch but, in our humble opinion, it doesn’t hurt.
Applications are now open through June 22nd at 9am PT. To apply, head on over to apply.tcdisrupt.com.
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