TechCrunch Startup Battlefield is coming to a new continent: Announcing Australia!

TechCrunch is headed to Australia to find the most disruptive early-stage startups poised to compete on a global stage. How? We are bringing TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield to Australia this year in partnership with ELEVACAO.

Many are familiar with the many adventurous innovations — zorbing, bungee jumping and jet boating to name a few — that have come out of the Australian-New Zealand ecosystem. But, so did Wi-Fi, black box flight recorders, cochlear implants, ultrasound technology and even atom splitting.

In recent years the island nations have witnessed Atlassian’s 1.1 billion IPO, a $250 million equity growth round for Australia’s Campaign Monitor and a $150 million round for New Zealand’s Xero. These high-growth companies are inspiring a healthy crop of early-stage startups in the region.

The Startup Battlefield has been bringing world-class founders into the spotlight since 2007, and in the past decade almost 700 contestants have gone on to raise nearly $7 billion in funding and rack up nearly 100 exits. Our community of Battlefield Alumni include companies like Mint, Dropbox, Yammer, TripIt, Getaround and Cloudflare. If TechCrunch invested in these companies, we’d perform like a top-10 VC. Instead, we’ll stick to telling the founder’s stories, uncovering the next wave of disruptive innovations and letting our readers deploy the capital.

Competing in the Battlefield doesn’t guarantee success; you earn that with your ideas and your execution. But it does put an unprecedented amount of attention on your company, help you to prepare for pitching investors and sharpen the way you communicate your vision.

TechCrunch Battlefield Australia will bring promising founders from the region’s rapidly accelerating startup ecosystem into the Battlefield portfolio. We’re thrilled to see what amazing companies we will uncover, and for the world to see this ecosystem’s rising founders and innovations launch globally with us on November 16th, 2017 in Sydney. See you there?

Battlefield is simple. Early-stage (typically pre-A round) startups with a functional prototype whose founders are residents of Australia or New Zealand are eligible. Sound like you or someone you know? Apply here. The deadline is September 4th, 2017. We will notify the 15 founders selected to compete in Startup Battlefield Australia on September 30th, 2017. TechCrunch does not take any fees or equity. But it’s also tough. We usually accept less than 3 percent of the applicant pool.

If you make the cut, you’ll receive expert pitch coaching from Samantha Stein, our Battlefield Editor, and Marisa Warren, CEO & founder of ELEVACAO. When the Battlefield arrives, you’ll be ready to pitch your company to seasoned investors and founders in five minutes, and answer any questions they throw your way. If you make it to the finals, you’ll pitch again in the top-five for your chance to be the first winner ever of TechCrunch Battlefield Australia, the recipient of a $25,000 equity-free cash prize and an all-expense paid trip (for two) to exhibit at TechCrunch’s flagship global competition, Disrupt Battlefield SF 2018 and compete in the Startup Battlefield, assuming the company still qualifies for that competition.

The entire event will be live-streamed (and later available on demand), and carried on TechCrunch.com, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

To bring Battlefield to Australia, TechCrunch is partnering with the ELEVACAO Foundation, whose mission to empower women tech entrepreneurs globally aligns with TechCrunch’s Include program to encourage more diversity in tech. We are also joining forces with Founders for Founders, a group dedicated to supporting tech entrepreneurs across Australia, and Hoist, which is promoting innovation through collaboration between entrepreneurs and corporates.

Editorial note: This post has been updated to better explain the winner’s prize package and qualification requirement for Startup Battlefield at Disrupt SF 2018.