Thousands of applications. Multiple rounds of review. Spent hundreds of hours evaluating startups from around the world. Now comes the part everyone has been waiting for.
Startup Battlefield 200 is almost here, and with today’s announcement, the judging panel is almost complete. In just a few weeks, 200 carefully selected startups gather at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 exhibit, meet investors, and compete for one of the most coveted opportunities in the startup world. Only a select group will advance to the live competition, where they will appear in front of thousands of founders, investors, media and customers and field questions from some of the sharpest minds in technology.
Today’s judges bring decades of experience building companies, supporting founders, and seeing transformative ideas before they become obvious. They will help decide which startups will continue their journey to the Startup Battlefield finals and, ultimately, who will have the chance to lift this year’s trophy. If you want to see tomorrow’s industry leaders before the rest of the world does, there’s no better place than TechCrunch Disrupt.
The only way to be front and center on the Disrupt Stage and witness the ultimate pitch competition of the year is register for TechCrunch Disrupt. Take your passport bring your co-founder, partner or peer for a 50% discount. Bringing a community of four or more? Save up to 30% on passes.
Meet the next wave of Startup Battlefield judges
Get to know the 20 judges that have been revealed so far by checking out the Disrupt agenda. Stay tuned for the final announcement, where we’ll reveal the five judges who will evaluate the finalists and determine who will take home the $100,000 equity-free prize and the coveted Disrupt Cup.
Caleb Appleton, Partner, Bison Ventures
Caleb Appleton is a partner at Bison Ventures, where he invests in physical AI across techbio, robotics and real-world intelligence. A biomedical engineer by training, his investments include Cobot, Vivodyne, Passkey, Sleuth, Inner Logic, Cosmon, and Grid Aero. Previously, Appleton invested in frontier technologies at Innovation Endeavors and spent several years as an executive at TuneIn, giving him experience spanning early stage science, venture capital, and scaling a technology business.
Sara Deshpande, General Partner, Maven Ventures
Sara Deshpande is a general partner at Maven Ventures, where she invests in seed-stage companies built around emerging consumer behaviors and trends. She focuses on consumer software on digital health and consumer applications of AI. Deshpande joined Maven as its first employee in 2014 and spent a decade in venture capital. She received her MBA from Stanford, where she now teaches a course on startups and entrepreneurship.
Aatish Nayak, Partner, Kleiner Perkins
Aatish Nayak joined Kleiner Perkins as a partner in May 2026, where he will focus on partnering with AI native founders with deep vertical expertise across all domains.
Before joining Kleiner Perkins, Nayak was the first PM and VP of product at Harvey, where he helped build the early product, design, marketing, analytics, and support teams. Before that, he was an early product leader at Scale AI working on data infrastructure for e-commerce, early NLP (GPT-2) and autonomous vehicles. And before that he was at Shield AI in the core knowledge stack for robotic defense systems that save lives.
Jason Risch, Partner, Greylock
Jason Risch is a partner at Greylock, where he invests in enterprise security, AI and ML infrastructure, data platforms and developer tools. Its portfolio includes Onehouse, a cloud-native managed lakehouse platform, and Baseten, an ML model utility toolkit for data science teams. Before joining Greylock, Risch worked in business operations at Opendoor, as a management consultant at McKinsey’s Bay Area practice, and as a startup builder at the AI Fund. He studied mathematics and computational science at Stanford University.
Mark Xu, Partner, Index Ventures
Mark Xu is a partner at Index Ventures, where he invests across stages in cybersecurity, infrastructure and AI. He has backed companies building at the frontier of AI, including Fireworks, Parallel, 7AI, Simile, and Flapping Airplanes, and previously worked as a growth investor at Lightspeed, backing companies such as Wiz, Glean, and Grafana. Xu is looking for deep technical founders who combine domain expertise with hustle and obsession with their customers.
Get your Disrupt Pass and don’t miss Startup Battlefield
TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 is happening October 13-15 at San Francisco’s Moscone West, bringing together 10,000+ tech leaders, VCs, and founders to meet the next generation of breakout startups, connect with leaders who could change their startup’s trajectory, and get a front-row seat to where the industry is going.
Register now save up to $100 before the door opens, and bring your co-founder, colleague or peer with a second pass for a 50% discount. Experience everything Disrupt has to offer together, from six industry stages, roundtables, and breakout sessions to startups and connections shaping the next in tech.
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