Listen up startup fans — the moment you’ve all been waiting for has arrived. Applications to Startup Battlefield are finally open! Now, we told you that Disrupt San Francisco 2018 is going to be our biggest, boldest, most ambitious Disrupt ever: triple the floor space, 12 technology tracks, four unique stages and more than 10,000 people. Clearly, an “ordinary” Startup Battlefield simply will not do. Drum roll, please.
This year, we’re doubling the prize for the Startup Battlefield competition. That’s right, the grand-prize winner will take home $100,000 in cold, hard, non-equity cash. How’s that for motivation? Drop whatever you’re doing and apply today.
Startup Battlefield takes place at Disrupt San Francisco on September 5-7, 2018 at Moscone Center West. TechCrunch editors will review all applications and select between 15-30 of the top early-stage startups to compete. Each team will receive expert pitch coaching from our seasoned TechCrunch Startup Battlefield team.
Come the big day, the competitors have six minutes on the Disrupt SF Main Stage to pitch their company to a panel of judges — consisting of well-known investors, entrepreneurs and technologists — and then answer any questions they may ask. From that initial cohort, the judges will choose five teams to enter a second and final round of pitching to a fresh team of judges. From that impressive gang of five one winner will claim the illustrious Disrupt Cup and receive the largest equity-free cash prize in TechCrunch Disrupt history. Imagine what your company could do with that kind of bank — not to mention the massive media exposure and access to eager investors.
This entire thrilling, nerve-wracking process plays out in front of a live audience numbering in the thousands, and it’s also live-streamed around the world (and available later on-demand) on TechCrunch.com, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
Here’s the thing. You stand to gain a lot even if you don’t actually win Startup Battlefield. Consider this: Every company that competes in Startup Battlefield joins the Startup Battlefield alumni community. This community consists of almost 750 companies that have collectively raised more than $8 billion in funding and produced more than 100 exits. Names like Mint, Dropbox, Yammer, Fitbit, Getaround and Cloudflare might ring a bell. The networking possibilities are limitless.
And, of course, Disrupt SF offers three days packed with exciting and cutting-edge tech programming, world-class speakers, Startup Alley, Q & A Sessions, the Virtual Hackathon and world-class networking made easy with the CrunchMatch platform.
Disrupt SF 2018 takes place on September 5-7, 2018 at Moscone Center West. Don’t miss your chance to compete in the biggest Startup Battlefield ever. Apply right now.