First judges revealed for Startup Battlefield 200 | TechCrunch

TechCrunch has announced the initial lineup of judges for its upcoming Startup Battlefield 200 competition, scheduled to take place during the Disrupt 2026 conference from October 13 to 15 in San Francisco.

This annual pitch event provides a highly visible platform for two hundred early-stage startup founders to present their business models to a panel of prominent industry experts, venture capitalists, and veteran entrepreneurs. Over its fifteen-year history, the competition has served as a launchpad for several highly successful global technology corporations, with former participants collectively securing more than thirty-two billion dollars in follow-on investment capital. The newly revealed judges are tasked with rigorously evaluating the live presentations, challenging strategic assumptions, and ultimately deciding which participating companies will advance.

The first cohort of selected judges consists of several established venture capitalists and technology operators with diverse investment portfolios. This group includes Janelle Teng of Bessemer Venture Partners, who specializes in early-stage artificial intelligence infrastructure, and Puneet Agarwal of True Ventures, who focuses on enterprise software. They are joined by Benjamin Narasin of Tenacity Venture Capital, TaskRabbit founder Leah Solivan of Precedent.vc, and Andrew Brackin of Google’s AI-focused fund, Gradient. These professionals will actively critique the cohort during the three-day October gathering, which is expected to attract over ten thousand international technology leaders, startup founders, and active investors looking to build relationships and identify emerging industry trends.