Twenty founders have earned spots in the 2026 Startup Battlefield Top 20. At TechCrunch Disrupt, each will get six minutes on the Disrupt Stage to make their case. They’ll compete for five places in the finals, where the champion will take home $100,000 and the Disrupt Cup.
Thousands of founders from around the world pitch each year about what they believe the future should look like. This year’s cohort ranges from organs to orbit, but one theme keeps emerging: making things that were hard to observe measurable enough to act on. The companies track biological clocks, grow miniature human organs, detect animal behavior, teach robots physical tasks, turn scam calls into intelligence and put idle computing power in orbit to work.
The companies don’t share a single technology or industry. They aim to understand more of the biological, physical, industrial and digital world, then use that knowledge to improve decisions, automate work that once required human intervention and tackle problems that seemed too complex to solve. One is taking a less subtle approach: launching cargo into space with a giant hydrogen-powered cannon.
Table of Contents
Tuesday, October 13
Startup Battlefield Semifinals Session 1 (10:00 a.m. – 11:15 a.m.)
Space and Physical AI
Longshot Space
Longshot Space aims to change the economics of sending cargo to orbit, targeting a launch cost of $50/kg with hydrogen-powered kinetic launchers.
Veritas
Veritas protects luxury brands with custom microchips that verify product authenticity and enable connected experiences after purchase.
Laplace Intelligence
Laplace Intelligence builds agentic world models for cities, ports and airports. These models let organizations test counterfactual versions of the real world before acting.
Flox Intelligence
Flox Intelligence aims to prevent deadly wildlife collisions at airports and railways. Its real-time AI detects animal behavior and safely redirects animals.
Satlyt
Satlyt helps satellite operators unlock and monetize idle computing power by turning spacecraft into virtual AI data centers with a single line of code.
Battlefield Semifinal Session 2 (1:00 p.m. – 2:15 p.m.)
Energy and Manufacturing
LNK Energies
LNK Energies says its compact reactor technology can deliver clean hydrogen power at a lower cost than diesel. It’s designed to work with existing diesel infrastructure.
Helix Carbon
Helix Carbon helps steelmakers cut emissions and fuel costs by electrochemically upcycling blast furnace waste gas into replacement fossil fuels on-site.
IndustrialNext
IndustrialNext automates high-precision, contact-rich assembly work with AI-driven robotic systems. The robots learn from production data and adapt to new products.
Niobia AI
Niobia AI uses domain-expert AI reasoning to help process and materials engineers cut weeks of root-cause analysis down to minutes.
Licube
Licube produces ultra-high-purity lithium and the lithium isotopes Li-6 and Li-7, critical inputs for nuclear fusion and advanced materials.
Wednesday, October 14
Battlefield Semifinal Session 3 (10:00 a.m. – 11:15 a.m.)
Health Tech and Life Sciences
Mosqitter
Mosqitter detects and helps prevent the spread of mosquito-borne disease. Its real-time disease-intelligence platforms turn sensor networks into early-warning systems for national health agencies.
Hiyd AI
Hiyd AI combines sleep, movement and nutrition data to provide proactive health insights through an ultra-slim, discreet wearable tracker and AI app.
TimeTeller GmbH
TimeTeller GmbH uses molecular diagnostics and AI to measure people’s biological clocks and determine the best time for treatment. The company aims to improve treatment efficacy and reduce side effects.
NTangible
NTangible helps coaches and front offices make smarter recruiting decisions by measuring athletes’ performance under pressure with a validated cognitive score.
Intero Biosystems
Intero Biosystems produces miniature human organs to accelerate drug development. The company says pharmaceutical firms can use them to identify safer, more effective medications while reducing clinical-trial costs.
Battlefield Semifinal Session 4 (1:30 p.m. – 2:45 p.m.)
Enterprise and Security
Apate.ai
Apate.ai uses conversational AI bots to engage scammers and turn those interactions into real-time intelligence for banks, telecommunications companies and governments. The company aims to dismantle scam operations.
CedarDB
CedarDB provides a data layer for the AI age, combining real-time transactions and analytics in one engine. Its database guardrails are designed to prevent AI agents from bypassing them.
Prismm
Prismm helps banks retain deposits and relationships across generations by automating secure inheritance workflows and financial-continuity infrastructure.
Floqer
Floqer streamlines B2B sales by enriching customer data from more than 80 sources and stitching every interaction into one timeline. AI agents can retrieve the timeline in milliseconds and act on it.
GUDEA
GUDEA provides immediate, actionable insights into audience behavior, engagement patterns and how information spreads. The company aims to give organizations a competitive edge in communication management.
And then there were five
After four semifinal sessions across two days, five companies will advance to the Startup Battlefield Finals on Thursday, October 15. The finalists are scheduled to take the stage at 11:30 a.m.
Before the finalists appear, Glīd, Nephrogen and Molecule.one will return to the Disrupt Stage to share alumni updates on what has happened since their time in Startup Battlefield.
At 4:15 p.m., one company will be crowned the 2026 Startup Battlefield champion and take home $100,000 and the Disrupt Cup.
Image credit: TechCrunch
