Startups

Here are the new features and the upgraded virtual Startup Alley experience at TC Disrupt 2021

Comment

Spring may be just around the corner (in the U.S., anyway), but it’s never too early to start planning for TechCrunch Disrupt 2021, which takes place on September 21-23. This all-virtual conference allows makers, innovators, entrepreneurs and investors from around the world to connect, collaborate and grow.

Startup Alley is a huge part of every Disrupt — it’s where hundreds of innovative, ground-breaking early-stage startups showcase their tech talent, products, platforms and services. This year, we’re shaking things up a bit to help exhibiting founders make the most of a virtual environment.

What’s new and different about exhibiting in Startup Alley at Disrupt 2021? Plenty. When you apply for a Startup Alley Pass, you stand in a giant spotlight of opportunity:

  • Pitch it. Pitch it real good. Bring the heat, because every exhibiting startup gets a guaranteed spot to deliver a 60-second elevator pitch during a breakout feedback session. Your audience? TechCrunch staff and thousands of Disrupt attendees around the world.
  • The Startup Alley Crawl. Every startup category will have an hour-long crawl in the agenda, where we’ll go live from the Disrupt Stage to interview a select number of founders in Startup Alley from that category.
  • Startup Battlefield Wild Card. The Startup Battlefield is the stuff of legend. Past winners include the likes of Vurb, Dropbox, Mint and Yammer. Two Startup Alley exhibitors — chosen by the TechCrunch Editorial team — will compete in this year’s Battlefield and have a shot at the $100,000 (equity-free) cash.
  • Startup Alley+. Every Startup Alley exhibitor is eligible, but only up to 50 companies will make the final cut to participate in Startup Alley+. These founders receive, at no additional cost, a curated experience to set them up for additional opportunities, learnings, exposure and success before Disrupt even starts. They’ll receive access to a series of founder masterclasses, take part in a pitch-off at Extra Crunch Live, and get introductions to elite investors in the TechCrunch community. Get your Startup Alley Pass soon because StartupAlley+ shifts into high gear at TC Early Stage: Marketing and Fundraising in July, where all Startup Alley+ companies get to attend this virtual event for free.

Pro Tip: Early-bird pricing to apply for Startup Alley ($199) ends May 13 at 11:59 pm (PST). The sooner you apply, the more you save.

TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 takes place on September 21-23. Don’t miss an opportunity to exhibit in all-new Startup Alley and apply now! Snag extra exposure, build your network and make connections that can alter the trajectory of your startup in the best possible way.

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at Disrupt 2021? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

More TechCrunch

The Kia EV3 — the new all-electric compact SUV revealed Thursday — illustrates a growing appetite among global automakers to bring generative AI into their vehicles.  The automaker said the…

The new Kia EV3 will have an AI assistant with ChatGPT DNA

Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, isn’t working properly right now. At first, we noticed it wasn’t possible to perform a web search at all. Now it seems search results are loading…

Bing’s API is down, taking Microsoft Copilot, DuckDuckGo and ChatGPT’s web search feature down too

If you thought autonomous driving was just for cars, think again. The so-called ‘autonomous navigation’ market — where ships steer themselves guided by AI, resulting in fuel and time savings…

Autonomous shipping startup Orca AI tops up with $23M led by OCV Partners and MizMaa Ventures

The best known mycoprotein is probably Quorn, a meat substitute that’s fast approaching its 40th birthday. But Finnish biotech startup Enifer is cooking up something even older: Its proprietary single-cell…

Meet the Finnish biotech startup bringing a long lost mycoprotein to your plate

Silo, a Bay Area food supply chain startup, has hit a rough patch. TechCrunch has learned that the company on Tuesday laid off roughly 30% of its staff, or north…

Food supply chain software maker Silo lays off ~30% of staff amid M&A discussions

Featured Article

Meta’s new AI council is composed entirely of white men

Meanwhile, women and people of color are disproportionately impacted by irresponsible AI.

14 hours ago
Meta’s new AI council is composed entirely of white men

If you’ve ever wanted to apply to Y Combinator, here’s some inside scoop on how the iconic accelerator goes about choosing companies.

Garry Tan has revealed his ‘secret sauce’ for getting into Y Combinator

Indian ride-hailing startup BluSmart has started operating in Dubai, TechCrunch has exclusively learned and confirmed with its executive. The move to Dubai, which has been rumored for months, could help…

India’s BluSmart is testing its ride-hailing service in Dubai

Under the envisioned framework, both candidate and issue ads would be required to include an on-air and filed disclosure that AI-generated content was used.

FCC proposes all AI-generated content in political ads must be disclosed

Want to make a founder’s day, week, month, and possibly career? Refer them to Startup Battlefield 200 at Disrupt 2024! Applications close June 10 at 11:59 p.m. PT. TechCrunch’s Startup…

Refer a founder to Startup Battlefield 200 at Disrupt 2024

Social networking startup and X competitor Bluesky is officially launching DMs (direct messages), the company announced on Wednesday. Later, Bluesky plans to “fully support end-to-end encrypted messaging down the line,”…

Bluesky now has DMs

The perception in Silicon Valley is that every investor would love to be in business with Peter Thiel. But the venture capital fundraising environment has become so difficult that even…

Peter Thiel-founded Valar Ventures raised a $300 million fund, half the size of its last one

Featured Article

Spyware found on US hotel check-in computers

Several hotel check-in computers are running a remote access app, which is leaking screenshots of guest information to the internet.

17 hours ago
Spyware found on US hotel check-in computers

Gavet has had a rocky tenure at Techstars and her leadership was the subject of much controversy.

Techstars CEO Maëlle Gavet is out

The struggle isn’t universal, however.

Connected fitness is adrift post-pandemic

Featured Article

A comprehensive list of 2024 tech layoffs

The tech layoff wave is still going strong in 2024. Following significant workforce reductions in 2022 and 2023, this year has already seen 60,000 job cuts across 254 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. Companies like Tesla, Amazon, Google, TikTok, Snap and Microsoft have conducted sizable layoffs in the first months of 2024. Smaller-sized…

19 hours ago
A comprehensive list of 2024 tech layoffs

HoundDog actually looks at the code a developer is writing, using both traditional pattern matching and large language models to find potential issues.

HoundDog.ai helps developers prevent personal information from leaking

The changes are designed to enhance the consumer experience of using Google Pay and make it a more competitive option against other payment methods.

Google Pay will now display card perks, BNPL options and more

Few figures in the tech industry have earned the storied reputation of Vinod Khosla, founder and partner at Khosla Ventures. For over 40 years, he has been at the center…

Vinod Khosla is coming to Disrupt to discuss how AI might change the future

AI has already started replacing voice agents’ jobs. Now, companies are exploring ways to replace the existing computer-generated voice models with synthetic versions of human voices. Truecaller, the widely known…

Truecaller partners with Microsoft to let its AI respond to calls in your own voice

Meta is updating its Ray-Ban smart glasses with new hands-free functionality, the company announced on Wednesday. Most notably, users can now share an image from their smart glasses directly to…

Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses now let you share images directly to your Instagram Story

Spotify launched its own font, the company announced on Wednesday. The music streaming service hopes that its new typeface, “Spotify Mix,” will help Spotify distinguish its own unique visual identity. …

Why Spotify is launching its own font, Spotify Mix

In 2008, Marty Kagan, who’d previously worked at Cisco and Akamai, co-founded Cedexis, a (now-Cisco-owned) firm developing observability tech for content delivery networks. Fellow Cisco veteran Hasan Alayli joined Kagan…

Hydrolix seeks to make storing log data faster and cheaper

A dodgy email containing a link that looks “legit” but is actually malicious remains one of the most dangerous, yet successful, tricks in a cybercriminal’s handbook. Now, an AI startup…

Bolster, creator of the CheckPhish phishing tracker, raises $14M led by Microsoft’s M12

If you’ve been looking forward to seeing Boeing’s Starliner capsule carry two astronauts to the International Space Station for the first time, you’ll have to wait a bit longer. The…

Boeing, NASA indefinitely delay crewed Starliner launch

TikTok is the latest tech company to incorporate generative AI into its ads business, as the company announced on Tuesday that it’s launching a new “TikTok Symphony” AI suite for…

TikTok turns to generative AI to boost its ads business

Gone are the days when space and defense were considered fundamentally antithetical to venture investment. Now, the country’s largest venture capital firms are throwing larger portions of their money behind…

Space VC closes $20M Fund II to back frontier tech founders from day zero

These days every company is trying to figure out if their large language models are compliant with whichever rules they deem important, and with legal or regulatory requirements. If you’re…

Patronus AI is off to a magical start as LLM governance tool gains traction

Link-in-bio startup Linktree has crossed 50 million users and is rolling out the beta of its social commerce program.

Linktree surpasses 50M users, rolls out its social commerce program to more creators