Next five VCs judging Startup Battlefield 200 at Disrupt 2026 | TechCrunch

Thousands of applications. Multiple rounds of review. Hundreds of hours spent evaluating startups from around the world. Now comes the part everyone has been waiting for.

Startup Battlefield 200 is almost here, and with today’s announcement, the judging panel is nearly complete. In just a couple of weeks, 200 carefully selected startups will gather at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 to exhibit, meet investors, and compete for one of the most coveted opportunities in the startup world. Only a select group will advance to the live competition, where they’ll pitch in front of thousands of founders, investors, media, and customers and face questions from some of the sharpest minds in technology.

Today’s judges bring decades of experience building companies, backing founders, and spotting transformative ideas before they become obvious. They’ll help decide which startups continue their journey toward the Startup Battlefield finals and, ultimately, who has a chance to lift this year’s trophy. If you want to see tomorrow’s industry leaders before the rest of the world does, there’s no better place to be than TechCrunch Disrupt.

The only way to be front and center at the Disrupt Stage and witness the ultimate pitch competition of the year is to register for TechCrunch Disrupt. Grab your pass and bring your co-founder, partner, or peer for 50% off. Bringing a community of four or more? Save up to 30% on passes.

Meet the next wave of Startup Battlefield judges

Get to know all 20 judges revealed so far by visiting the Disrupt agenda. Stay tuned for the final announcement, where we’ll unveil the five judges who will evaluate the finalists and determine who takes home the $100,000 equity-free prize and coveted Disrupt Cup.

Caleb Appleton, Partner, Bison Ventures

Caleb Appleton is a partner at Bison Ventures, where he invests in physical AI across techbio, robotics, and real-world intelligence. A biomedical engineer by training, his investments include Cobot, Vivodyne, Passkey, Sleuth, Inner Logic, Cosmon, and Grid Aero. Previously, Appleton invested in frontier technologies at Innovation Endeavors and spent several years as an operator at TuneIn, giving him experience spanning early-stage science, venture investing, and scaling a technology business.

Sara Deshpande, General Partner, Maven Ventures

Sara Deshpande is a general partner at Maven Ventures, where she invests in seed-stage companies built around emerging consumer behaviors and trends. She focuses on consumer software spanning digital health and consumer applications of AI. Deshpande joined Maven as its first employee in 2014 and has spent a decade in venture capital. She received her MBA from Stanford, where she now teaches a course on startups and entrepreneurship.

Aatish Nayak, Partner, Kleiner Perkins

Aatish Nayak joined Kleiner Perkins as a partner in May 2026, where he focuses on partnering with AI native founders with deep vertical expertise across all domains.
 
Prior to joining Kleiner Perkins, Narak was the first PM and VP of Product at Harvey, where he helped build the early product, design, marketing, analytics, and support teams. Before that, he was an early product leader at Scale AI working on data infrastructure for ecommerce, early NLP (GPT-2), and autonomous vehicles. And before that, he was at Shield AI working on the core knowledge stack for robotic defense systems that save lives.
 
Jason Risch, Partner, Greylock

Jason Risch is a partner at Greylock, where he invests in enterprise security, AI and ML infrastructure, data platforms, and developer tools. His portfolio includes Onehouse, a cloud-native managed lakehouse platform, and Baseten, an ML model serving toolkit for data science teams. Before joining Greylock, Risch worked in business operations at Opendoor, as a management consultant at McKinsey’s Bay Area practice, and as a startup builder at the AI Fund. He studied Mathematical and Computational Science at Stanford University.

Mark Xu, Partner, Index Ventures

Mark Xu is a partner at Index Ventures, where he invests across stages in cybersecurity, infrastructure, and AI. He has backed companies building at the frontier of AI, including Fireworks, Parallel, 7AI, Simile, and Flapping Airplanes, and previously worked as a growth investor at Lightspeed, supporting companies including Wiz, Glean, and Grafana. Xu looks for deeply technical founders who combine domain expertise with hustle and an obsession with their customers.

Grab your Disrupt pass and don’t miss Startup Battlefield

TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 is happening October 13-15 at San Francisco’s Moscone West, bringing 10,000+ tech leaders, VCs, and founders together to meet the next generation of breakout startups, connect with leaders who could change their startup’s trajectory, and get a front-row seat to where the industry is headed.

Register now to save up to $100 before Disrupt doors open, and bring your co-founder, colleague, or peer with a second pass for 50% off. Experience all that Disrupt has to offer together, from six industry stages, roundtables, and breakout sessions to the startups and connections shaping what’s next in tech.