AI NewsMeet the next wave of VCs judging Startup Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026

Meet the next wave of VCs judging Startup Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026

10:32 PM IST · September 21, 2026

For founders, Startup Battlefield 200 is one of the biggest moments of their careers. For everyone else in theTechCrunch Disrupt 2026audience, it’s one of the best ways to learn how great companies are actually evaluated by VCs. This startup pitch competition is as intense as you’d expect. From October 13–15 at San Francisco’s Moscone West, every hand-picked founder has six minutes to make their case, but the most revealing moments often come after the presentation ends. That’s when the judges start asking the questions every investor, customer, and future employee will eventually want answered. Can this team execute? Is the market big enough? Why now? What’s defensible? Those conversations are as valuable for the thousands of founders watching from the audience as they are for the companies on stage. That’s why we’re continuing to build one of the strongest judging panels in Startup Battlefield’s history. Today we’re excited to introduce another group of five top-tier investors who’ll help identify the companies with the potential to become tomorrow’s breakout success stories. Join the Startup Battlefield contenders and VC judges on the main stage, alongside 10,000+ tech leaders attending Disrupt, and watch the next generation of startups compete for their place in TechCrunch history.Register now to save up to $200on your pass before prices increase on September 25 at 11:59 p.m. PT. Without further ado, meet the next batch of investors who will judge which early-stage founder walks away with the $100,000 prize. Get to know these judges, along with the first 10 already announced on theDisrupt agenda. Vaibhav ‘Dr.V’ Agrawal, Co-Founder and General Partner, ODDBIRD VC Dr.Vis the co-founder and general partner ofODDBIRD VC, a pre-seed fund he founded in 2024 to back AI companies reindustrializing the West — with a focus on health and bio, critical supply chains, and real-world automation. A trained physician with an MBBS degree, Agrawal also holds an MBA from Stanford and previously served as a General Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners India, where he backed early-stage startups beginning in 2016. His current portfolio includes Anterior, a healthcare AI company that has raised $64 million from NEA and Sequoia. Anu Bharadwaj, Partner, ICONIQ Growth Anu Bharadwajis a partner atICONIQ Growth, where she focuses on enterprise software and AI companies. Before joining ICONIQ, Bharadwaj served as President and COO of Atlassian for nearly 12 years, where she led the product, engineering, and enterprise business across Jira, Confluence, and the Atlassian Cloud platform as the company scaled to billions in annual revenue. She previously held leadership roles at Microsoft and holds a B.Eng. in Computer Science from R.V. College of Engineering. Sho Sho Leigha Ho, Partner, General Catalyst Sho Sho Leigha Hois a partner onGeneral Catalyst‘s seed team, where she invests in early-stage founders. She serves as a board observer at Together AI. She joined General Catalyst in 2024 as its youngest partner. Her public investments include Graylark, Autoscience, Standard Kernel, and The Interaction Company of California (Poke), which Cognition acquired in July 2026. She holds an A.B. from Harvard and is based in San Francisco. Miloni Madan Presler, Partner, IVP Miloni Madan Presleris a partner atIVP(Institutional Venture Partners), where she partners with first-time founders building inflection-stage technology companies in enterprise software, healthcare, and security, from Series B through pre-IPO. She brings a disciplined growth equity and private equity perspective to company building, shaped by earlier roles at Summit Partners and Warburg Pincus. Presler holds a degree in Economics and Finance from Johns Hopkins University and speaks four languages. Aidan Madigan-Curtis, Partner, Eclipse Ventures Aidan Madigan-Curtisis a partner atEclipse Ventures, where she invests in AI, IoT, computer vision, and software solutions for manufacturing, logistics, supply chain, and climate transition. Named one of Business Insider’s 22 Investors to Know in Robotics and Physical AI, she leads Eclipse’s Carbon Optimization framework to track real emissions reductions across the firm’s portfolio. Before venture, Madigan-Curtis was a senior executive at Apple — scaling Apple Watch manufacturing from zero to millions of units per week — and then VP and General Manager at Samsara, where she helped grow the company from pre-revenue to over $1 billion in ARR. She holds a BA from Harvard University and an MBA from Stanford University. TechCrunch Disrupt 2026is happening October 13-15 in San Francisco, bringing 10,000+ tech leaders, VCs, and founders together to meet the next generation of breakout startups, connect with the leaders who could change their startup’s trajectory, and get a front-row seat to where the industry is headed.Save up to $200 on your ticketbefore rates increase on September 25 at 11:59 p.m. PT. Save an additional 30% when youregister as a group.