What a year! The 2017 finale was TechCrunch’s long-anticipated return to Berlin for it’s annual international TechCrunch Disrupt, 4-5 December 2017. To say it was a success is an understatement: the exceptional programming associated with a Disrupt, world-class Startup Battlefield competitors, and a packed Startup Alley.
The TechCrunch Disrupt conference made its first international foray back in 2013, appearing in Berlin, followed by London for three years. Our fifth conference in Europe reconfirmed why it is important for TechCrunch to hold Disrupt in Berlin: Europe is always a great opportunity to venture beyond U.S. shores and hear from some of the top minds shaping the global startup and technology scene. The TechCrunch editorial team culled an impressive lineup this year, including some of the brightest minds in women’s health, robotics, and cryptocurrency.
Disrupt Berlin smashed all of our existing records for an international TechCrunch hackathon and conference. Allow us to tell you more…
You can check out complete Berlin coverage here, but some of our favorite highlights are below.
Disrupt By The Numbers
- A record 2,600 attendees over two days
- 75% are director-level or above
- 70% work for a startup or small business
- 17.5M total video views; +14M YoY
- 5.2M unique visitors to TechCrunch.com, outperforming 2016 by 1.9M visitors
- 64 speakers and judges—Cal Henderson (Slack), Ida Tin (Clue), Tania Boler (Elvie), Ulrich Speisshofer (ABB), Ole Harms (MOIA / Volkswagen), and many more
- 100 press attendees—BBC, WIRED Germany, t3n, dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur, and others—and published 200+ stories
- Off the Record—Seven informal, extended sessions on big topics like AI and cryptocurrency, drew crowds of 1,800+
TechCrunch Include / Diversity
- TechCrunch’s Include commitment to diversity on stage produced great results: 35% of speakers and judges were women
- For the first time at a Disrupt Hackathon, the 5-person panel of hackathon judges were all women, as well as both Hackathon Emcees
Startup Battlefield, Startup Alley, and CrunchMatch
- Women-led Lia Diagnostics, which created the first-ever flushable pregnancy test to hit the market, won Startup Battlefield
- 888 investor-startup meetings curated by CrunchMatch — 97% of startups said they would participate again
- 416 Startup Alley exhibitors—a record high for an international Disrupt
- Ten Featured Pavilions in Startup Alley highlighted 30 startups who presented short product demos and interviews on the Showcase Stage
Disrupt also hosted 98 key sponsorship partners, including AWS, CBRE, Crackle by Sony, Esri, Intuit, Perkins Coie, PwC, Shiseido (featured below), Startups with Google, United Airlines, WeChat, and many more. Activations ranged from dynamic floor spaces, to private networking receptions (i.e. Women In Tech Breakfast, Investor Breakfast), and workshops.
But that’s not all: don’t forget Disrupt San Francisco, which will break the mold by more than doubling its size and move into the famed Moscone Center. Find out more and we’ll see you there!