The key facts

  • The finalists were selected from 20 startups across four categories: space and physical AI, energy and manufacturing, medtech and bio sciences, and enterprise solutions and security.
  • The winner will receive $100,000 with no equity transfer and the Startup Battlefield Cup.
  • The final is on Thursday at 11:30 a.m. Pacific Time, with an online broadcast.

Five Startup Battlefield Finalists

At TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, over two days, 20 startups took the stage with live demonstrations and answers to questions from expert judges. TechCrunch has announced the five companies that advanced to the Startup Battlefield final. This year the competition covered four categories: space and physical AI, energy and manufacturing, medtech and bio sciences, as well as enterprise solutions and security. The finalists are working on projects ranging from miniature human organs to fighting fraud and computing in space.

Final Conditions

The final starts on Thursday at 11:30 a.m. Pacific Time; it can be watched on the Disrupt stage or via live stream. The founders will present their projects to a different panel of expert judges, who will select the winner. The winner will receive the Startup Battlefield Cup and $100,000 with no equity stake in the company transferred.

Who Is Competing

Apate.ai deploys thousands of AI agents posing as potential victims: they answer scam calls, messages and emails, click on phishing links and join social media groups, pretending to be people of different ages, genders and accents in different languages, in order to keep scammers engaged and extract useful information. Flox Intelligence created a wildlife deterrent system — an alternative to sirens, lights, fences, birds of prey and shooting: edge devices with a motion sensor and camera recognize the animal using on-device models and emit a species-specific sound. Intero Biosystems grows human intestinal organoids — tissue that mimics the intestine and includes several cell and tissue types — for testing the effects of drugs and compounds on the body before clinical trials. Industrial Next builds autonomous robotic stations on proprietary foundation models that link vision, task context and motion; the company claims that retooling a production line takes minutes instead of weeks without traditional programming, and its stations are already used in the production of one of the world's most popular smartphones. Satlyt is developing software that allows multiple satellites to jointly perform large computing tasks in space; the software has already flown on two demonstration missions with a focus on the operational efficiency of spacecraft, which usually depend on ground control centers, and the next goal is to create a shared computing cloud between two satellites.