TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 Adds 5 VC Judges for Startup Battlefield 200

Q: Who are the final five mystery judges that will ultimately crown the next Dropbox or Discord at Disrupt 2026?

They have not been announced yet. TechCrunch’s latest update says the Startup Battlefield 200 judging panel is “nearly complete,” with 20 judges revealed so far, but the final five mystery judges who will decide the winner onstage at Disrupt 2026 remain undisclosed. TechCrunch explicitly said those last five judges “will be announced later.” What is known is the broader pool already named for earlier judging rounds. In addition to the five most recent additions — Caleb Appleton of Bison Ventures, Sara Deshpande of Maven Ventures, Aatish Nayak of Kleiner Perkins, Jason Risch of Greylock, and Mark Xu of Index Ventures — TechCrunch has also announced judges including Janelle Teng Wade of Bessemer, Puneet Agarwal of True Ventures, Benjamin Narasin of Tenacity Venture Capital, Leah Solivan of Precedent.vc, Andrew Brackin of Gradient, Vaibhav “Dr.V” Agrawal of ODDBIRD VC, Anu Bharadwaj of ICONIQ, Sho Sho Leigha Ho of General Catalyst, Miloni Madan Presler of IVP, Aidan Madigan-Curtis of Eclipse, Aditi Maliwal of Upfront, Michael Palank of MaC Ventures, Nell Daly of Revenge Capital, Grace Ge of Amplify, and Crystal Huang of GV. So the direct answer is that the identities of the final five judges are still unknown publicly, and TechCrunch has not yet said who will crown the next Startup Battlefield winner at Disrupt 2026.

3 articles · Updated · TechCrunch · Sep 28

Five new venture capitalists — from Bison Ventures, Maven Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Greylock and Index Ventures — were added to the Startup Battlefield 200 judging panel ahead of TechCrunch Disrupt 2026.
The judges will help decide which of the 200 selected startups advance to the live competition and move closer to the $100,000 equity-free prize and Disrupt Cup.
TechCrunch said 20 judges have now been revealed, with a final group of five still to be announced to evaluate the finalists.
The competition will unfold at TechCrunch Disrupt on October 13-15 at San Francisco's Moscone West, where more than 10,000 founders, investors and tech leaders are expected to attend.