TechCrunch's Startup Battlefield has launched some of tech's most iconic names. The numbers say it all.
More than 1,700 companies have competed on the Battlefield stage. Together, they've raised a collective $32 billion and notched over 250 exits. Dropbox, Discord, Cloudflare, Mint, Trello, N26 — names that defined a generation of tech.
Dropbox didn't need a flashy fundraising announcement. It needed skeptics in a room and a demo that changed their minds. Cloudflare pitched edge networking to people who barely understood what that meant. Discord started as a scrappy game developer called Hammer & Chisel before becoming the platform millions use daily.
The Battlefield network runs so deep that alumni companies have acquired each other. Dropbox bought fellow Battlefield alum DocSend in 2021.
For thousands of founders, Battlefield is the moment the world started paying attention. It's when a startup stops being a side project and becomes, potentially, the next unicorn.
TechCrunch has extended the Startup Battlefield 2026 application deadline to June 8 due to intense demand. The next Dropbox or Discord could be sitting in a TechCrunch office right now, pitching their big idea.
The latest batch of Battlefield alumni are already building. 2025 champion Kevin Damoa, founder of Glīd, came from military logistics. Runner-up Capella Kerst of geCKo Materials is taking her vision to the International Space Station.
The stage is where it starts. Where it ends is up to you.
