The key facts
- The final day of TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 takes place on October 15 at Moscone West, San Francisco; more than 10,000 attendees and 320+ exhibiting startups.
- The program includes the final and winner announcement of Startup Battlefield 2026, lightning pitches, and sessions on AI, agent security, M&A, and growth to $10M ARR.
- Tickets are available at a 75% discount off the original price only on the conference's last day.
Conference Final Day
On October 15, 2026, San Francisco hosts the third and final day of TechCrunch Disrupt 2026. According to TechCrunch, more than 10,000 founders, investors, and technology industry leaders have gathered at Moscone West. Registration and the Expo Hall exhibit space are open from 8:00 AM to 3:30 PM. The exhibition features more than 320 startups. Attendee badges use Klik technology for exchanging contacts, which remain accessible through the event app after it ends.
Startup Battlefield and Pitch Stage
The key event of the day is the final of the Startup Battlefield 2026 competition with the winner announcement. The jury includes Carl Alomar (M13), Stacey Brown-Philpot (Cherryrock Capital), Chi-Hua Chien (Goodwater Capital), Dayna Grayson (Construct Capital), and Alexa von Tobel (Inspired Capital). A separate session is dedicated to the fate of past years' finalists: Piotr Byrski (Molecule.one), Kevin Damoa (Glīd), and Demetri Maxim (Nephrogen). On the Pitch Showcase Stage in the exhibit hall, startups give one-minute lightning pitches representing their countries and regions, including Health and Consumer categories.
Main Program
On the Builders Stage, discussions cover the psychological difficulties of founding (Nell Daly, Revenge Capital; David H. Rosmarin, Harvard Medical School; Jack Whitham, Airspeeder), M&A as an early-stage strategy (Carl Alomar, M13; Lindsay Mignano, Mignano Law Group; Ryan Yee, Onchain Group), viral growth (Zak Yadegari, Cal AI), the path to $10M ARR (Luc Arnaud, Lovable; Ben Broca, Polsia; Tomasz Tunguz, Theory Ventures), raising pre-seed without a product (Austin Clements, Slauson & Co.; Sandhya Venkatachalam, Axiom Partners), and building AI startups (Nader Khalil and Sydney Sykes, Nvidia). On the Disrupt Stage, Panos Panay (Amazon) reflects on what will replace the smartphone, Bluesky Social representatives Tony Schneider and Rose Wang discuss rebooting social networks, Dr. Nabha Saklaen (Cellino) talks about 'banking biology,' and Replit CEO Amjad Masad discusses what comes next when anyone can create software. A session on 'the power of access' is also announced, featuring Bruce Lee (Keebeck Wealth Management) and Mark Wahlberg (MUNICIPAL).
AI Track and Roundtables
The industry stage dedicated to AI includes topics such as agent security (Gavriel Cohen, NanoCo; Rick Smith, Okta), the transformation of SaaS business models (Katie Gao, Sapphire Ventures; Aaron Jacobson, NEA; Barr Moses, Monte Carlo), vetting AI capabilities before delegating tasks (Irene Solaiman, Hugging Face), $63 billion AI infrastructure 'storagemaxxing' (Kevin Cochrane, Vultr; Jake Lee, L2 Point Management; Pinaki Mukerji, Wasabi Technologies; Stephanie Walter, HyperFRAME Research), life after chatbots (Alexander Embiricos, OpenAI), the new profession of GTM engineer (Karim Amin, Clay), and the security of cloud AI systems (Rudra Mitra, Amazon Web Services; Kathy Moussouri, Luta Security; Wendy Nather). On the Breakout Stage — a session on building AI products with certification (Dr. Marily Nika, AI Product Academy), the experience of bootstrapped unicorn Hostinger (Patrick Burke), and a discussion on physical AI (Ethan Batraski, Venrock; Ivan Popyrev, Archetype AI; Ian Rountree, Cantos). Roundtables cover AI infrastructure and decarbonization, autonomous logistics, efficient AI inference (Anush Elangovan, AMD; Junchen Jiang, Tensormesh), co-founder relationships, and the UC Berkeley ecosystem.
Ticket Sales
TechCrunch reports that conference registration remains open throughout the final day: tickets are sold at a 75% discount off the original price. After Disrupt 2026 concludes, the next opportunity to attend the event will only come next year.
