Startups

Five, count ’em, five reasons you need to be at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023

Comment

Why should you go to TechCrunch Disrupt 2023 in San Francisco on September 19–21? Let us count the reasons. We could hit double digits, but we’ll stop at five because you’re busy people with unicorns to chase. Besides, these five should be tempting enough for anyone interested in building a bigger, better startup — in less time.

Five reasons to go to TechCrunch Disrupt 2023

1. Network, connect and collaborate

You simply won’t find a better time or place to expand your network, with the right people, than at Disrupt. More than 10,000 attendees gather, looking for ways to learn, connect, collaborate and build. Start with our event app — it lets you find and schedule meetings with people who share your business goals.

Networking at Disrupt also includes plenty of organic ways to meet, greet and create startup magic in a variety of settings:

  • Deal Flow Café, our brand-new investor-to-founder networking area.
  • Enhance your trip to San Francisco at After-Hours Events happening during Disrupt week throughout the city.
  • Meet like-minded travelers in the many engaging breakout sessions, roundtable discussions, meetups and Q&As in the expo.

We could go on and on, and we’ll keep you posted on more speakers, topics and events you won’t want to miss at TC Disrupt.

2. Seven new industry stages

Well, aren’t we sneaky? Tucking seven reasons into one, giant opportuni-palooza. You’ll find innumerable opportunities within your own sector, plus the rare chance to explore collaboration across different industries — all under one roof. Click the links below to see the top founders, VCs, builders, researchers and policy makers who will share their insights on the hot topics, current trends, future technology and more across seven breakthrough sectors on seven stages.

3. World-class speakers

The startup ecosystem is packed with brilliant minds, and you’ll always find the best and brightest leaders across the startup spectrum speaking on the stages at Disrupt. Here’s just a sample, and you’ll find all of them listed in our speaker roster — and we’re still adding to the list!

4. The Startup Battlefield 200

Thousands of early-stage startups have applied to join the Startup Battlefield 200 cohort this year. Only the top 200 will make the cut and exhibit for all three days of Disrupt. Spend time on the expo floor and meet these amazing founders as they demo their cutting-edge tech. Each Startup Battlefield company will also fast-pitch live on the expo’s Pitch Showcase Stage.

Of those Startup Battlefield 200 companies, only 20 will be chosen to compete for the $100,000 (equity-free) prize in the epic Startup Battlefield competition. Watching is one of the best ways to learn how VCs think and what motivates them to invite you to that all-important first meeting. Do not miss this world-class showcase! Want to know more about the experience? Listen to our four-episode Inside Startup Battlefield podcast

5. Breakouts & Roundtables

Expert-led breakout sessions and roundtable discussions — some of the most popular draws at Disrupt — focus on individual topics designed to help you build a better business. Here are a couple of examples of what you can expect:

Breaking into the Healthcare Monolith: Strategies for Working with Payors and Providers: Presented by InterSystems.

Setting the Stage for Women of Color Founders to Equitably Share the VC Spotlight: With Brittany S. Hale, interim CEO NS COO, Digitalundivided. Presented by Digitalundivided.

War Stories with Founder Equity and Cap Tables: With Sam Wong, startup coach and fractional founder, Fundable Startups.

Rapidly Grow your AI Startup: With Jeremiah Owyang, investor, Blitzscaling Ventures. Presented by Llama Lounge.

TechCrunch Disrupt 2023 takes place on September 19–21 in San Francisco.

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

More TechCrunch

Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! This week, we’re looking at the continued fallout from Synapse’s bankruptcy, how Layer wants to disrupt SMB accounting, and much more! To get a roundup of…

There’s a real appetite for a fintech alternative to QuickBooks

The company is hoping to produce electricity at $13 per megawatt hour, which would be more than 50% cheaper than traditional onshore wind.

Bill Gates-backed wind startup AirLoom is raising $12M, filings reveal

Generative AI makes stuff up. It can be biased. Sometimes, it spits out toxic text. So can it be “safe”? Rick Caccia, the CEO of WitnessAI, believes it can. “Securing…

WitnessAI is building guardrails for generative AI models

It’s not often that you hear about a seed round above $10 million. H, a startup based in Paris and previously known as Holistic AI, has announced a $220 million…

French AI startup H raises $220 million seed round

Hey there, Series A to B startups with $35 million or less in funding — we’ve got an exciting opportunity that’s tailor-made for your growth journey! If you’re looking to…

Boost your startup’s growth with a ScaleUp package at TC Disrupt 2024

TikTok is pulling out all the stops to prevent its impending ban in the United States. Aside from initiating legal challenges against the government, that means shaping up its public…

As a U.S. ban looms, TikTok announces a $1M program for socially driven creators

Microsoft wants to put its Copilot everywhere. It’s only a matter of time before Microsoft renames its annual Build developer conference to Microsoft Copilot. Hopefully, some of those upcoming events…

Microsoft’s Power Automate no-code platform adds AI flows

Build is Microsoft’s largest developer conference and of course, it’s all about AI this year. So it’s no surprise that GitHub’s Copilot, GitHub’s “AI pair programming tool,” is taking center…

GitHub Copilot gets extensions

Microsoft wants to make its brand of generative AI more useful for teams — specifically teams across corporations and large enterprise organizations. This morning at its annual Build dev conference,…

Microsoft intros a Copilot for teams

Microsoft’s big focus at this year’s Build conference is generative AI. And to that end, the tech giant announced a series of updates to its platforms for building generative AI-powered…

Microsoft upgrades its AI app-building platforms

The UK’s data protection watchdog has closed an almost year-long investigation of Snap’s AI chatbot, My AI — saying it’s satisfied the social media firm has addressed concerns about risks…

UK data protection watchdog ends privacy probe of Snap’s GenAI chatbot, but warns industry

U.S. cell carrier Patriot Mobile experienced a data breach that included subscribers’ personal information, including full names, email addresses, home zip codes, and account PINs, TechCrunch has learned. Patriot Mobile,…

Conservative cell carrier Patriot Mobile hit by data breach

It’s been three years since Spotify acquired live audio startup Betty Labs, and yet the music streaming service isn’t leveraging the technology to its fullest potential—at least not in our…

Spotify’s ‘Listening Party’ feature falls short of expectations

Alchemist Accelerator has a new pile of AI-forward companies demoing their wares today, if you care to watch, and the program itself is making some international moves into Tokyo and…

Alchemist’s latest batch puts AI to work as accelerator expands to Tokyo, Doha

“Late Pledge” allows campaign creators to continue collecting money even after the campaign has closed.

Kickstarter now lets you pledge after a campaign closes

Stack AI’s co-founders, Antoni Rosinol and Bernardo Aceituno, were PhD students at MIT wrapping up their degrees in 2022 just as large language models were becoming more mainstream. ChatGPT would…

Stack AI wants to make it easier to build AI-fueled workflows

Pinecone, the vector database startup founded by Edo Liberty, the former head of Amazon’s AI Labs, has long been at the forefront of helping businesses augment large language models (LLMs)…

Pinecone launches its serverless vector database out of preview

Young geothermal energy wells can be like budding prodigies, each brimming with potential to outshine their peers. But like people, most decline with age. In California, for example, the amount…

Special mud helps XGS Energy get more power out of geothermal wells

Featured Article

Sonos finally made some headphones

The market play is clear from the outset: The $449 headphones are firmly targeted at an audience that would otherwise be purchasing the Bose QC Ultra or Apple AirPods Max.

4 hours ago
Sonos finally made some headphones

Adobe says the feature is up to the task, regardless of how complex of a background the object is set against.

Adobe brings Firefly AI-powered Generative Remove to Lightroom

All cars suffer when the mercury drops, but electric vehicles suffer more than most as heaters draw more power and batteries charge more slowly as the liquid electrolyte inside thickens.…

Porsche Ventures invests in battery startup South 8 to boost cold-weather EV performance

Scale AI has raised a $1 billion Series F round from a slew of big-name institutional and corporate investors including Amazon and Meta.

Data-labeling startup Scale AI raises $1B as valuation doubles to $13.8B

The new coalition, Tech Against Scams, will work together to find ways to fight back against the tools used by scammers and to better educate the public against financial scams.

Meta, Match, Coinbase and others team up to fight online fraud and crypto scams

It’s a wrap: European Union lawmakers have given the final approval to set up the bloc’s flagship, risk-based regulations for artificial intelligence.

EU Council gives final nod to set up risk-based regulations for AI

London-based fintech Vitesse has closed a $93 million Series C round of funding led by investment giant KKR.

Vitesse, a payments and treasury management platform for insurers, raises $93M to fuel US expansion

Zen Educate, an online marketplace that connects schools with teachers, has raised $37 million in a Series B round of funding. The raise comes amid a growing teacher shortage crisis…

Zen Educate raises $37M and acquires Aquinas Education as it tries to address the teacher shortage

“When I heard the released demo, I was shocked, angered and in disbelief that Mr. Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so eerily similar to mine.”

Scarlett Johansson says that OpenAI approached her to use her voice

A new self-driving truck — manufactured by Volvo and loaded with autonomous vehicle tech developed by Aurora Innovation — could be on public highways as early as this summer.  The…

Aurora and Volvo unveil self-driving truck designed for a driverless future

The European venture capital firm raised its fourth fund as fund as climate tech “comes of age.”

ETF Partners raises €285M for climate startups that will be effective quickly — not 20 years down the road

Copilot, Microsoft’s brand of generative AI, will soon be far more deeply integrated into the Windows 11 experience.

Microsoft wants to make Windows an AI operating system, launches Copilot+ PCs