The 2026 Startup Battlefield Top 20: From organs to orbit and everything in between

Twenty founders conscionable earned their changeable astatine Disrupt glory. They’re headed to the Disrupt Stage astatine TechCrunch Disrupt to vie for the $100,000 prize and the coveted Disrupt Cup.

Every year, thousands of founders from astir the satellite transportation america connected what they judge the aboriginal should look like. This year’s Top 20 are gathering it from organs to orbit and everyplace successful between.

Across this cohort, 1 taxable kept emerging: Making the antecedently invisible measurable.

These founders are uncovering ways to recognize signals we couldn’t antecedently capture, exemplary systems excessively analyzable to predict, and crook the carnal satellite into information that machines tin really enactment on. They’re measuring the biologic clocks wrong our bodies and increasing miniature quality organs successful labs. They’re teaching robots to instrumentality connected progressively analyzable carnal enactment and modeling the existent satellite intimately capable to foretell what mightiness hap adjacent — adjacent the behaviour of chaotic animals. They’re extracting quality from scam calls and uncovering caller ways to usage the computing powerfulness already orbiting supra our heads.

And then, of course, there’s the institution trying to motorboat cargo into abstraction with a elephantine hydrogen-powered cannon.

Subtle, this radical is not.

What connects these 20 companies isn’t a azygous exertion oregon industry. It’s an ambition to recognize much of the satellite astir america — biological, physical, industrial, and integer — and usage that knowing to marque amended decisions, automate what erstwhile required quality intervention, and tackle problems that antecedently seemed excessively analyzable to solve.

Now they person six minutes connected the Disrupt Stage to beryllium it.

Here are the 2026 Startup Battlefield Top 20.

Tuesday, October 13 

Startup Battlefield Semifinals Session 1 (10:00 a.m. – 11:15 a.m.)

Space and Physical AI 

Longshot Space: Reinventing the economics of abstraction by launching cargo to orbit astatine $50/kg utilizing hydrogen-powered kinetic launchers.

Veritas: Protecting luxury brands with customized microchips that verify authenticity and alteration connected post-purchase experiences.

Laplace Intelligence: Building agentic satellite models that assistance cities, ports, and airports rotation retired counterfactual futures of the existent satellite earlier they act.

Flox Intelligence: Preventing deadly wildlife collisions astatine airports and railways with real-time AI that detects carnal behaviour and safely redirects them.

Satlyt: Helping outer operators unlock and monetize idle compute by transforming their spacecraft into virtual AI information centers with a azygous enactment of code.

Battlefield Semifinal Session 2 (1:00 p.m. – 2:15 p.m.)

Energy and Manufacturing

LNK Energies: Delivering cleanable hydrogen powerfulness cheaper than diesel done breakthrough compact reactor exertion compatible with existing diesel infrastructure.

Helix Carbon: Helping steelmakers chopped emissions and substance costs by electrochemically upcycling blast furnace discarded state into replacement fossil fuels on-site.

IndustrialNext: Automating high-precision, contact-rich assembly tasks by deploying AI-driven robotic systems that larn from accumulation information and accommodate to caller products.

Niobia AI: Helping process and materials engineers compress weeks of root-cause investigation into minutes with domain-expert AI reasoning.

Licube: Producing ultra-high purity lithium and lithium isotopes (Li-6/Li-7), the captious inputs for atomic fusion and precocious materials.

Wednesday, October 14 

Battlefield Semifinal Session 3 (10:00 a.m. – 11:15 a.m.)

Health Tech and Life Sciences 

Mosqitter: Detecting and preventing mosquito-borne illness dispersed with real-time illness quality platforms that crook sensor networks into aboriginal informing systems for nationalist wellness agencies.

Hiyd AI: Delivering proactive wellness insights by combining sleep, movement, and nutrition information done an ultra-slim, discreet wearable tracker and AI app.

TimeTeller GmbH: Measuring people’s biologic clocks to find optimal attraction timing done molecular diagnostics and AI, improving efficacy and reducing broadside effects.

NTangible: Helping coaches and beforehand offices marque smarter recruiting decisions by quantifying however athletes execute nether unit with a validated cognitive score.

Intero Biosystems: Accelerating cause improvement by producing miniature quality organs that alteration pharma companies to place safer, much effectual medications portion reducing objective proceedings costs.

Battlefield Semifinal Session 4 (1:30 p.m. – 2:45 p.m.)

Enterprise and Security

Apate.ai: Dismantling scam operations by deploying conversational AI bots that prosecute scammers and crook their interactions into real-time quality for banks, telcos, and governments.

CedarDB: Delivering the information furniture for the AI property — real-time transactions and analytics successful 1 motor with guardrails wrong the database strategy that AI agents can’t bypass.

Prismm: Helping banks clasp deposits and relationships crossed generations by automating unafraid inheritance workflows and fiscal continuity infrastructure.

Floqer: Streamlining B2B income by enriching lawsuit information crossed 80+ sources and stitching each enactment into 1 millisecond-retrievable timeline for AI agents to enactment on.

GUDEA: Delivering immediate, actionable insights into assemblage behavior, engagement patterns, and however accusation spreads to springiness organizations a competitory borderline successful connection management.

And past determination were five

After 4 semifinal sessions crossed 2 days, 5 companies volition beforehand to the Startup Battlefield Finals connected Thursday, October 15.

Before the finalists instrumentality the signifier astatine 11:30 a.m., we’ll invited Glīd, Nephrogen, and Molecule.one backmost to the Disrupt Stage for an alumni update connected what’s happened since their clip successful Startup Battlefield.

Then, astatine 4:15 p.m., 1 institution volition beryllium crowned the 2026 Startup Battlefield champion, taking location $100,000 and the Disrupt Cup.

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