TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 runs from Tuesday 13 to Thursday 15 October 2026 at Moscone West in San Francisco. The organisers promise more than 200 expert sessions across six curated stages, the Startup Battlefield pitch competition with its $100,000 prize, and speakers including Rivian's RJ Scaringe, Amazon's Panos Panay and Replit's Amjad Masad. TechCrunch built this year's programme around one question: how do you build a lasting company in the AI era? Here are the dates, stages, speakers, Battlefield details and ticket tips.
TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 dates and venue
Dates — 13–15 October 2026 (Tuesday to Thursday)
Venue — Moscone West, San Francisco
Format — six editorial stages, an Expo Hall, roundtables, investor matchmaking, a Deal Flow Café and citywide Side Events
Headline competition — Startup Battlefield 200, with a $100,000 winner's cheque
The six Disrupt 2026 stages
Disrupt Stage — the main stage, for founders, CEOs and industry leaders talking about what comes next.
Builders Stage — practical sessions on fundraising, hiring, go-to-market, product and scaling.
AI Stage — how fast-growing start-ups build, deploy and make money from AI, including agents, models and infrastructure.
Real World AI Stage — robotics, autonomous systems, manufacturing, healthcare and defence.
Smart Money Stage — fintech, stablecoins, payments, embedded finance and AI-driven financial services.
Smart Systems Stage — chips, compute, energy, networking and data centres.
Who is speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026?
TechCrunch's founder guide (1 October) lists these headline conversations: RJ Scaringe (Rivian) on building a generational company, Panos Panay (Amazon) on designing products people love, Paolo Ardoino (Tether) on money, AI and infrastructure, Toni Schneider and Rose Wang (Bluesky) on whether social media can start over, Amjad Masad (Replit) on how every founder becomes technical, and Andrew Feldman (Cerebras) on the AI compute race. TechCrunch says more names will be added before the event.
Startup Battlefield 200: how it works
TechCrunch picked 200 start-ups on 20 August to compete. They go through a coaching process before pitching on stage to top venture capitalists, and the winner is revealed at the closing session. TechCrunch has been announcing the judges in waves through September. The published judges include investors such as Caleb Appleton, Sara Deshpande, Aatish Nayak, Anu Bharadwaj and Janelle Teng Wade. The agenda also lists themed Battlefield sessions, including Built World and Space/Physical AI. Applications for 2026 are closed, but TechCrunch says it is expanding the programme to more international markets for 2027.
People also ask: is TechCrunch Disrupt worth it?
TechCrunch's own pitch is that the value is in the meetings. In its guide, one past Battlefield founder reported a 3x oversubscribed round and more than 100 investor inbound messages, and another had nearly 30 back-to-back investor conversations after pitching. For founders who are raising, the investor-matchmaking tools and the Deal Flow Café come with the Founder Pass. For engineers and operators, the AI, Real World AI and Smart Systems stages are the most useful. Prices rise as the event gets closer. TechCrunch is offering 50% off a second founder ticket, and a limited $75 Expo+ pass for people affected by layoffs this year.
How Disrupt fits October's tech calendar
Disrupt lands in a busy month for San Francisco. SEMICON West runs the same week at Moscone, and GitHub Universe follows at Fort Mason later in October. Our live guides at thesundayprofile.com/semicon-west-2026 and thesundayprofile.com/github-universe-2026 cover both, so you can plan one trip around all three.
Sources
Dates, venue, stages, speakers, the Battlefield prize and process, and pricing promotions: TechCrunch, "The founder's guide to TechCrunch Disrupt 2026" (1 October 2026) and the TechCrunch Disrupt event pages. Judges and themed Battlefield sessions: TechCrunch judge announcements (10–28 September 2026) and the Disrupt 2026 agenda. The speaker line-up may change.