Disrupt London In December Will Feature Many of Europe’s EU-nicorns…

We have some incredible speakers coming to the TechCrunch Disrupt London conference on December 7-8. And they include several of Europe’s new Unicorns. Or should we say EUnicorns?


Marco Jansen is Founder and CTO of Catawiki, Europe’s fastest growing online auction house. With over 40 weekly auctions and close to 200,000 registered users, Catawiki is the number one site for buying and selling collectibles. Catawiki also houses the world’s largest collectors’ catalogue. While eBay is doubling down on its core business after its split from PayPal, this upstart out of Europe is looking to muscle in on the business where eBay first made its name, collectibles. Catawiki has raised $82 million to scale its business on the continent and beyond.


Pieter van der Does is the Co-founder, President and Chief Executive Officer at Ayden. A leading expert with over 15 years experience in the payments industry, Pieter van der Does co-founded Adyen in 2006. Since launching Adyen, the business has grown from a startup into a global operation with over 4,500 customers, averaging double-digit annual growth since 2007. Prior to Adyen Pieter was Chief Commerce Officer at Bibit, building the payment service provider into a global player before it was acquired by the Royal Bank of Scotland in 2004, after which he served on the board until 2006. Adyen has been chosen by the world’s largest merchants as their preferred omni-channel payment processing partner and acquirer and as CEO Pieter continues to build his team and the company to be the center of international commerce. Widely considered a visionary in payments, Pieter makes sure that Adyen delivers quality of service to merchants worldwide. Pieter holds a Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Amsterdam and was elected Entrepreneur of the year by EY in 2013.

As we speak, TechCrunch’s journalists are sifting through the entries for the Battlefield where we will publicly launch 25 brand new, disruptive, startups live on stage.

Disrupt London is one of Europe’s most anticipated technology conferences of the year, and follows on from our huge San Francisco event in September.

Each day starts with panels and one-on-one discussions moderated by TechCrunch writers and editors, special guest speakers, leading venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. In the afternoon, we host the Startup Battlefield competition which culminates in six finalists taking the stage at the end of the event for a shot at winning the Disrupt Cup, and taking away a £30,000 check. Yes, £30,000, people!

Buy your tickets to Disrupt here and save £400 if you buy before November 6. You can also grab Startup Alley tickets here, where you can showcase your startup.

In addition to onstage panel sessions and fireside chats, Disrupt will also feature Startup Battlefield and Startup Alley to London.

Startup Battlefield competitors pitch their companies live and onstage to innovators, investors and influencers in the tech community. TechCrunch identifies emerging companies to demo and compete for a prize of £30,000 (€42,000) and the coveted Disrupt Cup, won previously by Mint.com, Yammer, Fitbit, and Dropbox, among others.

The Startup Battlefield will select around 30 brand new startups to launch on stage in front of a panel of top VCs and other founders, coverage on TechCrunch and the winner gets the €40,000 prize. Startup Alley offers another way for early-stage companies to gain exposure with a setup that encourages both exhibiting and networking, and provides high visibility. Roughly 100 startups comprise Startup Alley with around 50 new companies demoing on Monday and 50 demoing on Tuesday.

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Additional speakers and agenda details will be announced soon.