Six Billion Reasons* to Attend Disrupt SF 2016
Now in its sixth year, TechCrunch Disrupt is one of the best known conference series in the tech industry. Disrupt, which takes place annually in San Francisco, New York, London, and Beijing, is renowned for showcasing the most innovative and promising startups. In San Francisco, epicenter of technology and innovation, TechCrunch has a particular mystique. This year’s Disrupt SF takes place September 12 to14 at the 110,000 sq. ft. Pier 48, where more than 4000 entrepreneurs, investors, and business leaders will converge to get a glimpse of this year’s crop of hot startups.
The Disrupt Cup | Credit: techcrunch.com
At the heart of TechCrunch Disrupt is the Startup Battlefield, where early-stage startups compete for the coveted Disrupt Cup, which comes with a $50,000 award. According to TechCrunch, 76 of the competition’s prior contestants have been acquired or gone public. The list includes Mint, the personal finance management platform that was acquired by Intuit in 2009, and Yammer, an enterprise social networking services company acquired by Microsoft in 2012. Many startup companies have also used Startup Battlefield as a launching pad to spur their businesses forward. As Matthew Prince, CEO of Cloudflare and Disrupt SF 2014 alum, said, “We were struggling like crazy to get our first hundred customers, but since Disrupt, we have been signing up 5,000 customers a day.”
In addition to the Startup Battlefield, Disrupt SF also offers other programs to help early stage startups attract interest from investors, the media and the industry. For example, Startup Alley is a centralized space on the conference floor where hundreds of companies showcase their technologies and products. This year, startups exhibiting at Startup Alley range across a variety of industries, from enterprise and fin-tech to edu-tech and sports. In keeping with the frothy levels of Silicon Valley buzz around artificial intelligence and virtual reality in the past year, it’s no surprise that Disrupt SF’s Showcase Stage will feature AI, VR and AR startups. In addition, CrunchMatch is where the TechCrunch team gets to play matchmaker: Team members will introduce startups to participating investors based on which companies offer the best fit with individual VC firms’ profiles and investment goals.
Reid Hoffman | Credit: Wikipedia
Of course, a conference can’t be great without top-class speakers. At Disrupt SF 2016, attendees will hear from tech industry luminaries, including Marc Andreessen, Salesforce’s Marc Benioff, Google Cloud chief Diane Greene and Greylock’s Reid Hoffman. Disrupt SF is also bringing on such unexpected speakers as the Golden State Warriors’ star player Steph Curry, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, HBO’s Silicon Valley creator Mike Judge, and Pokemon Go CEO John Hanke. All of them will likely spark interesting conversations about the ways technology is converging with other industries.
TechCrunch, Disrupt’s host and sponsor, is a leading news site for the technology industry. It was founded by Michael Arrington and Keith Teare in 2005, and it was acquired by AOL in 2010.
*610 TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield startups have raised a collective $6.1 billion since 2007.
