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

Jasper Health, a cancer care platform startup, laid off a substantial part of its workforce, TechCrunch has learned.

General Catalyst-backed Jasper Health lays off staff

Live Nation says its Ticketmaster subsidiary was hacked. A hacker claims to be selling 560 million customer records.

Live Nation confirms Ticketmaster was hacked, says personal information stolen in data breach

Featured Article

Inside EV startup Fisker’s collapse: how the company crumbled under its founders’ whims

An autonomous pod. A solid-state battery-powered sports car. An electric pickup truck. A convertible grand tourer EV with up to 600 miles of range. A “fully connected mobility device” for young urban innovators to be built by Foxconn and priced under $30,000. The next Popemobile. Over the past eight years, famed vehicle designer Henrik Fisker…

10 hours ago
Inside EV startup Fisker’s collapse: how the company crumbled under its founders’ whims

Late Friday afternoon, a time window companies usually reserve for unflattering disclosures, AI startup Hugging Face said that its security team earlier this week detected “unauthorized access” to Spaces, Hugging…

Hugging Face says it detected ‘unauthorized access’ to its AI model hosting platform

Featured Article

Hacked, leaked, exposed: Why you should never use stalkerware apps

Using stalkerware is creepy, unethical, potentially illegal, and puts your data and that of your loved ones in danger.

11 hours ago
Hacked, leaked, exposed: Why you should never use stalkerware apps

The design brief was simple: each grind and dry cycle had to be completed before breakfast. Here’s how Mill made it happen.

Mill’s redesigned food waste bin really is faster and quieter than before

Google is embarrassed about its AI Overviews, too. After a deluge of dunks and memes over the past week, which cracked on the poor quality and outright misinformation that arose…

Google admits its AI Overviews need work, but we’re all helping it beta test

Welcome to Startups Weekly — Haje‘s weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. In…

Startups Weekly: Musk raises $6B for AI and the fintech dominoes are falling

The product, which ZeroMark calls a “fire control system,” has two components: a small computer that has sensors, like lidar and electro-optical, and a motorized buttstock.

a16z-backed ZeroMark wants to give soldiers guns that don’t miss against drones

The RAW Dating App aims to shake up the dating scheme by shedding the fake, TikTok-ified, heavily filtered photos and replacing them with a more genuine, unvarnished experience. The app…

Pitch Deck Teardown: RAW Dating App’s $3M angel deck

Yes, we’re calling it “ThreadsDeck” now. At least that’s the tag many are using to describe the new user interface for Instagram’s X competitor, Threads, which resembles the column-based format…

‘ThreadsDeck’ arrived just in time for the Trump verdict

Japanese crypto exchange DMM Bitcoin confirmed on Friday that it had been the victim of a hack resulting in the theft of 4,502.9 bitcoin, or about $305 million.  According to…

Hackers steal $305M from DMM Bitcoin crypto exchange

This is not a drill! Today marks the final day to secure your early-bird tickets for TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 at a significantly reduced rate. At midnight tonight, May 31, ticket…

Disrupt 2024 early-bird prices end at midnight

Instagram is testing a way for creators to experiment with reels without committing to having them displayed on their profiles, giving the social network a possible edge over TikTok and…

Instagram tests ‘trial reels’ that don’t display to a creator’s followers

U.S. federal regulators have requested more information from Zoox, Amazon’s self-driving unit, as part of an investigation into rear-end crash risks posed by unexpected braking. The National Highway Traffic Safety…

Feds tell Zoox to send more info about autonomous vehicles suddenly braking

You thought the hottest rap battle of the summer was between Kendrick Lamar and Drake. You were wrong. It’s between Canva and an enterprise CIO. At its Canva Create event…

Canva’s rap battle is part of a long legacy of Silicon Valley cringe

Voice cloning startup ElevenLabs introduced a new tool for users to generate sound effects through prompts today after announcing the project back in February.

ElevenLabs debuts AI-powered tool to generate sound effects

We caught up with Antler founder and CEO Magnus Grimeland about the startup scene in Asia, the current tech startup trends in the region and investment approaches during the rise…

VC firm Antler’s CEO says Asia presents ‘biggest opportunity’ in the world for growth

Temu is to face Europe’s strictest rules after being designated as a “very large online platform” under the Digital Services Act (DSA).

Chinese e-commerce marketplace Temu faces stricter EU rules as a ‘very large online platform’

Meta has been banned from launching features on Facebook and Instagram that would have collected data on voters in Spain using the social networks ahead of next month’s European Elections.…

Spain bans Meta from launching election features on Facebook, Instagram over privacy fears

Stripe, the world’s most valuable fintech startup, said on Friday that it will temporarily move to an invite-only model for new account sign-ups in India, calling the move “a tough…

Stripe curbs its India ambitions over regulatory situation

The 2024 election is likely to be the first in which faked audio and video of candidates is a serious factor. As campaigns warm up, voters should be aware: voice…

Voice cloning of political figures is still easy as pie

When Alex Ewing was a kid growing up in Purcell, Oklahoma, he knew how close he was to home based on which billboards he could see out the car window.…

OneScreen.ai brings startup ads to billboards and NYC’s subway

SpaceX’s massive Starship rocket could take to the skies for the fourth time on June 5, with the primary objective of evaluating the second stage’s reusable heat shield as the…

SpaceX sent Starship to orbit — the next launch will try to bring it back

Eric Lefkofsky knows the public listing rodeo well and is about to enter it for a fourth time. The serial entrepreneur, whose net worth is estimated at nearly $4 billion,…

Billionaire Groupon founder Eric Lefkofsky is back with another IPO: AI health tech Tempus

TechCrunch Disrupt showcases cutting-edge technology and innovation, and this year’s edition will not disappoint. Among thousands of insightful breakout session submissions for this year’s Audience Choice program, five breakout sessions…

You’ve spoken! Meet the Disrupt 2024 breakout session audience choice winners

Check Point is the latest security vendor to fix a vulnerability in its technology, which it sells to companies to protect their networks.

Zero-day flaw in Check Point VPNs is ‘extremely easy’ to exploit

Though Spotify never shared official numbers, it’s likely that Car Thing underperformed or was just not worth continued investment in today’s tighter economic market.

Spotify offers Car Thing refunds as it faces lawsuit over bricking the streaming device

The studies, by researchers at MIT, Ben-Gurion University, Cambridge and Northeastern, were independently conducted but complement each other well.

Misinformation works, and a handful of social ‘supersharers’ sent 80% of it in 2020

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Okay, okay…

Tesla shareholder sweepstakes and EV layoffs hit Lucid and Fisker