Daily Archives: April 14, 2021

News: Daily Crunch: Coinbase goes public

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Coinbase makes an impressive public debut, Dell spins out VMware and Ford announces a new hands-free driving system. This is your Daily Crunch for April 14, 2021. The big story: Coinbase goes public Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase went public today via direct listing at an opening price of $381 per share, climbing to nearly $430 before

Coinbase makes an impressive public debut, Dell spins out VMware and Ford announces a new hands-free driving system. This is your Daily Crunch for April 14, 2021.

The big story: Coinbase goes public

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase went public today via direct listing at an opening price of $381 per share, climbing to nearly $430 before closing at $328.28 (giving the company a market capitalization of $85.8 billion).

The listing is a major milestone for the cryptocurrency world (with various crypto prices soaring today as well), though there’s at least a tiny bit of irony in the fact that this success comes via the traditional stock market.

The tech giants

Dell is spinning out VMware in a deal expected to generate over $9B for the company — Dell acquired VMware as part of the massive $58 billion EMC acquisition in 2015.

Google’s FeedBurner moves to a new infrastructure but loses its email subscription service — Since its acquisition in 2007, FeedBurner lingered in an odd kind of limbo.

Instagram’s new test lets you choose if you want to hide ‘Likes,’ Facebook test to follow — The app has been experimenting with hiding Likes since 2019.

Startups, funding and venture capital

Astranis raises $250M at a $1.4B valuation for smaller, cheaper geostationary communications satellites — While a lot of other companies are looking to build satellite constellations in low-Earth orbit, Astranis is focused on the GEO band, where the large legacy communications satellites currently operate.

MIT startup Pickle raises $5.75M for its package-picking robot — The robot’s name is Dill.

Outschool is the newest edtech unicorn — The new funding values Outschool at $1.3 billion, around four times higher than its roughly $320 million valuation set less than a year ago.

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

How to pivot your startup, save cash and maintain trust with investors and customers — Olive CEO Sean Lane explains a painful process.

Alexa von Tobel outlines how founders should manage personal finances — Von Tobel laid out the steps you can take to stay out of debt, build credit and accumulate wealth through investments to ensure you have financial peace of mind as you start a company.

Inside the US’ epic first-quarter venture capital results — Funding in the United States nearly doubled compared to the same quarter of 2020, according to PitchBook.

(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)

Everything else

Ford takes aim at Tesla, GM with its new hands-free driving system — Ford will debut its new hands-free driving feature on the 2021 F-150 pickup truck and certain 2021 Mustang Mach-E models through a software update later this year.

Kroger launches its first Ocado-powered ‘shed’, a massive, robot-filled fulfillment center in Ohio — Built with a giant grid along the floor, “the shed”, as Ocado calls its warehouses, will feature some 1,000 robots alongside 400 human employees.

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 3pm Pacific, you can subscribe here.

News: Creator monetization and CRM startup Pico raises $6.5M

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Pico, a New York startup that helps online creators and media companies make money and manage their customer data, announced today that it has launched an upgraded platform and raised $6.5 million in new funding. In a statement, the startup’s co-founder and CEO Nick Chen said Pico helps creators with their two biggest problems —

Pico, a New York startup that helps online creators and media companies make money and manage their customer data, announced today that it has launched an upgraded platform and raised $6.5 million in new funding.

In a statement, the startup’s co-founder and CEO Nick Chen said Pico helps creators with their two biggest problems — “how to make money more easily and how to get to know your audience better” — while also giving them control over their two most important assets, namely “your brand and the relationship to your audience.”

The company provides a long list of different tools, including landing pages, pop-ups to collect email addresses, paid newsletters, subscription paywalls, tiered membership programs, recurring and one-time donations and video revenue tools. With version 2.0, the company says it’s bringing all these features together with a unified data structure, so that customers can see “who is paying for what content and where they came from” in one dashboard.

Via email, co-founder and President Jason Bade (pictured above with Chen) pointed to “the power of our CRM to help creators understand their audience” as the most significant upgrade, suggesting that this “makes Pico the operating system for the creator economy.”

Image Credits: Pico

“A creator can’t scale a business without the proper tools,” Bade continued. “Take email capture, that is the first step in audience development. But what next? You need data and a CRM to handle it. 2.0 upgrades every part of Pico to rearchitect it for the scalability and extensibility that the creator economy demands.”

Pico also it will be launching an API soon to support integrations with different parts of the platform.

Apparently, the company has seen its customer count increase nearly 5x in the past year, with customers including The Colorado Sun, Defector Media and The Generalist. And it recently recruited Rodolphe Ködderitzsch (who held a number of roles at YouTube, including global head of partner sales) as its chief revenue officer.

The new funding was led by Ann Lai at Bullpen Capital and brings Pico’s total funding to $10 million. Other investors include Precursor Ventures, Stripe, BloombergBeta and Village Global.

News: Hear how to raise big funding (and use it well) from FirstMark’s Rick Heitzmann and Orchard’s Court Cunningham

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Orchard, founded in 2017, was relatively early to the proptech industry. The company, originally called Perch, focused on dual-trackers, which are folks who are both buying and selling a home simultaneously. FirstMark Capital led both the Series A and the Series B funding rounds for Orchard, doubling down on the real estate platform. It goes

Orchard, founded in 2017, was relatively early to the proptech industry. The company, originally called Perch, focused on dual-trackers, which are folks who are both buying and selling a home simultaneously. FirstMark Capital led both the Series A and the Series B funding rounds for Orchard, doubling down on the real estate platform.

It goes without saying, we’re absolutely thrilled to have FirstMark Capital Managing Partner Rick Heitzmann and Orchard CEO Court Cunningham join us on an upcoming episode of Extra Crunch Live. The event takes place on May 5 at 3pm ET/noon PT. Register here.

Orchard has raised more than $350 million, including a $200 miilion+ debt financing. Alongside running a full brokerage company for dual-tracking home buyers and sellers, it also offers title and mortgage services. But what’s most interesting about the vertically integrated company is the innovation it’s doing around the consumer experience. Namely, Orchard is taking an entirely new approach to home searching, which has been incredibly stagnant despite the rush to digitize the process by major tech players.

Orchard allows consumers to get ML-driven recommendations based on homes they’ve already liked, and search by different rooms in the house. For example, perhaps the backyard or the kitchen is the most important part of the house — Orchard lets you default to that pic when browsing listings.

Meanwhile, Rick Heitzmann founded FirstMark Capital all the way back in 2008. He’s led investments in companies including Pinterest, Airbnb, StubHub, Tapad, DraftKings, Riot Games, Ro, Discord, Carta and more.

On Extra Crunch Live, we’ll talk more about what Heitzmann looks for in a founder, what he sees in Cunningham and the future of proptech, why Cunningham chose FirstMark and even take a walk through Orchard’s early pitch deck.

We’ll also look at pitch decks submitted by the audience, giving you the chance to hear directly from a founder and investor how they consume funding decks, what works and what doesn’t. If you want to submit your deck to be featured in a future episode of ECL, hit up this link.

It’s gonna be a blast.

As a reminder, anyone can attend Extra Crunch Live, but on-demand access to the content is reserved strictly for Extra Crunch members. You can join Extra Crunch here.

News: Building customer-first relationships in a privacy-first world is critical

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With clarity of vision, privacy can improve business outcomes. Prioritizing consumer trust and transparency is the right thing to do, and it can help the bottom line too.

In business today, many believe that consumer privacy and business results are mutually exclusive — to excel in one area is to lack in the other. Consumer privacy is seen by many in the technology industry as an area to be managed.

But the truth is, the companies who champion privacy will be better positioned to win in all areas. This is especially true as the digital industry continues to undergo tectonic shifts in privacy — both in government regulation and browser updates.

By the end of 2022, all major browsers will have phased out third-party cookies — the tracking codes placed on a visitor’s computer generated by another website other than your own. Additionally, mobile device makers are limiting identifiers allowed on their devices and applications. Across industry verticals, the global enterprise ecosystem now faces a critical moment in which digital advertising will be forever changed.

Up until now, consumers have enjoyed a mostly free internet experience, but as publishers adjust to a cookie-less world, they could see more paywalls and less free content.

They may also see a decrease in the creation of new free apps, mobile gaming, and other ad-supported content unless businesses find new ways to authenticate users and maintain a value exchange of free content for personalized advertising.

When consumers authenticate themselves to brands and sites, they create revenue streams for publishers as well as the opportunity to receive discounts, first-looks, and other specially tailored experiences from brands.

To protect consumer data, companies need to architect internal systems around data custodianship versus acting from a sense of data entitlement. While this is a challenging and massive ongoing evolution, the benefits of starting now are enormous.

Putting privacy front and center creates a sustainable digital ecosystem that enables better advertising and drives business results. There are four steps to consider when building for tomorrow’s privacy-centric world:

Transparency is key

As we collectively look to redesign how companies interact with and think about consumers, we should first recognize that putting people first means putting transparency first. When people trust a brand or publishers’ intentions, they are more willing to share their data and identity.

This process, where consumers authenticate themselves — or actively share their phone number, email or other form of identity — in exchange for free content or another form of value, allows brands and publishers to get closer to them.

News: Dell is spinning out VMware in a deal expected to generate over $9B for the company

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Dell announced this afternoon that it’s spinning out VMware, a move that has been suspected for some time. Dell, acquired VMware as part of the massive $58 billion EMC acquisition (announced as $67 billion) in 2015. The way that the deal works is that Dell plans to offer VMware shareholders a special dividend of between

Dell announced this afternoon that it’s spinning out VMware, a move that has been suspected for some time. Dell, acquired VMware as part of the massive $58 billion EMC acquisition (announced as $67 billion) in 2015.

The way that the deal works is that Dell plans to offer VMware shareholders a special dividend of between $11.5 and 12 billion. As Dell owns approximately 81% of those shares that would work out to somewhere between $9.3 and $9.7 billion coming into Dell’s coffers when the deal closes later this year.

Dell shares are up more than 8% following the announcement. The company intends on using parts of its proceeds to deleverage, writing in a release that it will use “net proceeds to pay down debt, positioning the company well for Investment Grade ratings.” By that it means that Dell will reduce its net debt position and, it hopes, garner a stronger credit rating that will limit its future borrowing costs.

Even when it was part of EMC, VMware had a special status in that it operates as a separate entity with its own executive team, board of directors and the stock has been sold separately as well.

“Both companies will remain important partners, providing Dell Technologies with a differentiated advantage in how we bring solutions to customers. At the same time, Dell Technologies will continue to modernize its core infrastructure and PC businesses and embrace new opportunities through an open ecosystem to grow in hybrid and private cloud, edge and telecom,” Dell CEO Michael Dell said in a statement.

While there is a lot of CEO speak in that statement, it appears to mean that the move is mostly administrative as the companies will continue to work closely together, even after the spin off is official. Dell will remain as chairman of both companies.

For its part, VMware said in a separate release that the deal will allow it “increased freedom to execute its strategy, a simplified capital structure and
governance model and additional strategic, operational and financial flexibility, while maintaining the strength of the two companies’ strategic partnership.”

The deal is expected to close at the end of this year, but it has to clear a number of regulatory hurdles first. That includes garnering a favorable ruling from the IRS that the deal qualifies for a tax-free spin-off, which could prove to be a considerable hurdle for a deal like this.

The transaction is not a surprise. The company has been open about its intention to shake up its broader corporate structure. And with Dell bloated in debt terms and, perhaps, in product scope as well, the VMware deal could be an intelligent way forward. Dell investors are more excited about the transaction than VMware shareholders, with the latter company’s stock up a more modest 1.4%.

VMware’s most recent earnings release notes that it had $4.715 billion in “total cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments.” Perhaps its shareholders aren’t enthused at the prospect of levering VMware’s balance sheet to help Dell do the opposite.

News: Grocery startup Mercato spilled years of data, but didn’t tell its customers

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A security lapse at online grocery delivery startup Mercato exposed tens of thousands of customer orders, TechCrunch has learned. A person with knowledge of the incident told TechCrunch that the incident happened in January after one of the company’s cloud storage buckets, hosted on Amazon’s cloud, was left open and unprotected. The company fixed the

A security lapse at online grocery delivery startup Mercato exposed tens of thousands of customer orders, TechCrunch has learned.

A person with knowledge of the incident told TechCrunch that the incident happened in January after one of the company’s cloud storage buckets, hosted on Amazon’s cloud, was left open and unprotected.

The company fixed the data spill, but has not yet alerted its customers.

Mercato was founded in 2015 and helps over a thousand smaller grocers and specialty food stores get online for pickup or delivery, without having to sign up for delivery services like Instacart or Amazon Fresh. Mercato operates in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York, where the company is headquartered.

TechCrunch obtained a copy of the exposed data and verified a portion of the records by matching names and addresses against known existing accounts and public records. The data set contained more than 70,000 orders dating between September 2015 and November 2019, and included customer names and email addresses, home addresses, and order details. Each record also had the user’s IP address of the device they used to place the order.

The data set also included the personal data and order details of company executives.

It’s not clear how the security lapse happened since storage buckets on Amazon’s cloud are private by default, or when the company learned of the exposure.

Companies are required to disclose data breaches or security lapses to state attorneys-general, but no notices have been published where they are required by law, such as California. The data set had more than 1,800 residents in California, more than three times the number needed to trigger mandatory disclosure under the state’s data breach notification laws.

It’s also not known if Mercato disclosed the incident to investors ahead of its $26 million Series A raise earlier this month. Velvet Sea Ventures, which led the round, did not respond to emails requesting comment.

In a statement, Mercato chief executive Bobby Brannigan confirmed the incident but declined to answer our questions, citing an ongoing investigation.

“We are conducting a complete audit using a third party and will be contacting the individuals who have been affected. We are confident that no credit card data was accessed because we do not store those details on our servers. We will continually inform all authoritative bodies and stakeholders, including investors, regarding the findings of our audit and any steps needed to remedy this situation,” said Brannigan.

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News: How to pivot your startup, save cash and maintain trust with investors and customers

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“We would go all in on a product and we’d build it and put blood, sweat and tears into it, and then I would kill it, and we’d move on to the next thing.”

A few years ago, founder Sean Lane thought he’d achieved product-market fit.

Speaking to attendees at TechCrunch’s Early Stage virtual event, Lane said Queue, a secure digital check-in tablet for hospital waiting rooms that reduced wait times by uniting and correcting electronic medical records, was “selling like hotcakes.” But once Lane realized it would only ever address one piece of a much bigger market opportunity, he sold off the product, laid off two-thirds of the people affiliated with it and redirected the employees who were left.

Lane explained that what he really wanted to build is what his company — since renamed Olive — has now become, a robotic process automation (RPA) company that takes on hospital workers’ most tedious tasks so nurses and physicians can spend more time with patients.

Customers seem to like it. According to Lane, more than 600 hospitals use the service to assist employees with tasks like prior authorizations and patient verifications.

Investors clearly approve of what Olive is selling, too: Last year, the company raised three rounds of funding totaling roughly $380 million and valuing the company at $1.5 billion. According to Crunchbase, it’s raised a total of $456 million altogether.

In fact, VCs think so much of Lane that in February, they invested $50 million in another company that Lane runs simultaneously called Circulo, a startup that describes itself as building the “Medicaid insurance company of the future.”

Still, the path from point A to B was painful, and it might not have happened if Lane didn’t have a few things going for him, including a deeply personal reason to build something that could have greater impact on the U.S. healthcare system.

News: Ford takes aim at Tesla, GM with its new hands-free driving system

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Ford will debut its new hands-free driving feature on the 2021 F-150 pickup truck and certain 2021 Mustang Mach-E models through a software update later this year, technology that the automaker developed to rival similar systems from Tesla and GM. That hands-free capability — which uses camera, radar sensors and software to provide a combination

Ford will debut its new hands-free driving feature on the 2021 F-150 pickup truck and certain 2021 Mustang Mach-E models through a software update later this year, technology that the automaker developed to rival similar systems from Tesla and GM.

That hands-free capability — which uses camera, radar sensors and software to provide a combination of adaptive cruise control, lane centering and speed sign recognition — has undergone some 500,000 miles of development testing, Ford emphasized in its announcement and tweet from its CEO Jim Farley in a not-so-subtle dig at Tesla’s approach of rolling out beta software to customers. The system also has an in-cabin camera that monitors eye gaze and head position to help ensure the driver’s eyes remain on the road.

The hands-free system will be available on vehicles equipped with Ford’s Co-Pilot360 Technology and will only work on certain sections of divided highways that Ford. The system, which will be rolled out via software updates later this year, will initially be available on more than 100,000 miles of highways in North America.

The system does comes with a price. BlueCruise software, which includes a three-year service period, will cost $600. The price of upgrading the hardware will depend on the vehicle. For instance, on F-150 owners will have to plunk down another $995 for the hardware, while owners of the “select” Mustang Mach-E model variant will have to pay an additional $2,600. BlueCruise comes standard on CA Route 1, Premium and First Edition variants of the Mustang Mach-E.

While nearly every automaker offers some driver assistance features, Ford is clearly aiming to compete with or capture market share away from GM and Tesla — the two companies with the best-known and capable ADAS. Convincing customers that its system is worth the expense will be critical to meeting its internal target of selling more than 100,000 vehicles equipped with BlueCruise in the first year, based on company sales and take-rate projections.

GM Super Cruise uses a combination of lidar map data, high-precision GPS, cameras and radar sensors, as well as a driver attention system, which monitors the person behind the wheel to ensure they’re paying attention. Unlike Tesla’s Autopilot driver assistance system, users of Super Cruise do not need to have their hands on the wheel. However, their eyes must remain directed straight ahead.

Tesla’s Autopilot feature also combines sensors like cameras and radar, computing power and software. Autopilot, which comes standard in all new Tesla vehicles, will steer, accelerate and brake automatically within its lane. Tesla uses a torque sensor in the steering wheel to determine if drivers are paying attention, although many owners have found and publicly documented hacks so they can keep their hands off the wheels and eyes off the road ahead. Tesla charges $10,000 for its upgrade to FSD (its own internal branding meant to stand for full self-driving). FSD is not an autonomous system. It does provide a number of more capable driver assist functions including automatic lane changes, the ability to recognize and act upon traffic lights and stop signs and a navigation feature that will suggest lane changes on route and automatically steer the vehicle toward highway interchanges and exits.

Ford said that its system communicates with drivers in different ways, including displaying text and blue lighting cues in the instrument cluster, which it says is effective even for those with color blindness.

The so-called BlueCruise hands-free technology will be offered in other Ford vehicle models in the future, the company said. Drivers who opt for the technology will continue to receive software updates as it is improved. Ford said future improvements will include a feature that will let the vehicle change lanes by tapping the turn signal indicator as well as one that will predict and then adjust vehicle speed for roundabouts and curves. The company also said it plans to offer regular mapping updates.

News: TikTok funds first episodic public health series ‘VIRAL’ from NowThis

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TikTok is taking another step towards directly funding publishers’ content with today’s announcement that it’s financially backing the production of media publisher NowThis’ new series, “VIRAL,” which will feature interviews with public health experts and a live Q&A session focused on answering questions about the pandemic. The partnership represents TikTok’s first-ever funding of an episodic

TikTok is taking another step towards directly funding publishers’ content with today’s announcement that it’s financially backing the production of media publisher NowThis’ new series, “VIRAL,” which will feature interviews with public health experts and a live Q&A session focused on answering questions about the pandemic. The partnership represents TikTok’s first-ever funding of an episodic series from a publisher, though TikTok has previously funded creator content.

Through TikTok’s Instructive Accelerator Program, which was formerly known as the Creative Learning Fund, other TikTok publishers have received grants and hands-on support from TikTok so they could produce quality instructive content for TikTok’s #LearnOnTikTok initiative. The program today is structured as four, eight-week cycles during which time publishers post videos four times per week.

NowThis had also participated in the Creative Learning Fund last year and was selected for the latest cycle of the Instructive Accelerator Program. But its “VIRAL” series is separate from these efforts.

NowThis says it brought the concept for the show to TikTok earlier this year outside of the accelerator program, and TikTok greenlit it. TikTok then co-produced the series and provided some funding. Neither NowThis nor TikTok would comment on the extent of the financial backing involved, however.

The “VIRAL” series itself is hosted by infectious disease clinical researcher Laurel Bristow, who spent the last year working on COVID treatments and research. Every Thursday, Bristow will break down COVID facts in easy-to-understand language, NowThis says, including things like vaccine efficacy, transmission timelines, and treatment. The show will also bust COVID myths, provide information about ongoing public health risks, and feature interviews with a cross-section of experts.

Each episode of the will be 45 minutes in length and will also include an interactive segment where the TikTok viewing audience will be able to engage in a real-time Q&A session about the show’s content. In total, five episodes are being produced, and will air starting on Thursday April 15 at 6 PM ET and will run through Thursday May 13 on the @NowThis main TikTok page.

@nowthisTune in to our new TikTok live show VIRAL on Thursdays at 6pm ET with host @kinggutterbaby

♬ original sound – nowthis

NowThis has become one of the most-followed news media accounts on TikTok, with 4.6 million followers across its news and politics channels, since launching a little over a year ago. Because of its focus on video, it’s been a good fit for the TikTok’s platform.

The approach TikTok is taking with “VIRAL’s” production, it’s worth noting, stands in contrast to how other social media platforms are handling the pandemic and COVID-19 information. While most, including TikTok, have pledged to fact check COVID-19 information, remove misinformation and conspiracies, point users to official sources for health information, and provide other resources, TikTok is directly funding public health content featuring scientists and researchers, and then promoting it on its network.

The company explained to TechCrunch its thinking on the matter.

“As the pandemic continues to evolve, we think it’s important to provide our community an outlet to dispel misinformation and communicate with public health experts in real-time,” said Robbie Levin, Manager of Media Partnerships at TikTok. “NowThis has consistently been a great partner that produces engaging and informative content, so we felt this series would be an impactful and important avenue for our users to receive credible information on our platform,” Levin noted.

While the pandemic has driven the topic of choice here, paying creators for content is not new. And TikTok isn’t the only one to do so. Instagram and Snapchat are both funding creator content for their TikTok clones, Reels and Spotlight, respectively. And new social platforms like Clubhouse are funding creators’ shows, as well.

TikTok says it’s not currently talking to other publishers to produce more series like “VIRAL,” but it isn’t ruling out the idea of expanding its creator funding and producing efforts. In addition to its accelerator program, which is continuing, TikTok says if “VIRAL” proves successful and the community responds positively, it will pursue similar opportunities in the future.

News: Beat the deadline: Apply to compete in Startup Battlefield at TC Disrupt 2021

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Startup Battlefield — the matriarch of all pitch competitions — is the stuff of tech legend. Heck, it even played a role in the HBO show, “Silicon Valley,” and its influence touches early-stage startups around the globe. Under no circumstance will you find a bigger, better platform for launching your startup to the world. Battlefield

Startup Battlefield — the matriarch of all pitch competitions — is the stuff of tech legend. Heck, it even played a role in the HBO show, “Silicon Valley,” and its influence touches early-stage startups around the globe. Under no circumstance will you find a bigger, better platform for launching your startup to the world.

Battlefield has a long history of producing notable names. Need an example? A little startup by the name of Dropbox competed in the Battlefield at TC50 (the precursor to Disrupt) way back in 2008.

TechCrunch is on the hunt for innovative, game-changing startups to take the Startup Battlefield challenge and wrangle with the best-of-the-best at TC Disrupt 2021 in September. Are you game?

Apply to compete in Startup Battlefield before the deadline closes on May 13 11:59 pm (PT).

The stakes: A shot at $100,000 in equity-free prize money. Major exposure for all competing startups — think investors eager to find and fund the next big thing, journalists in search of exciting, game-changing startups to cover and potential customers and partners who can help take your business to new levels of success.

The investment: Your time. Yup, that’s it. Appyling to and participating in Startup Battlefield is 100 percent free. No fees, no equity cut. You simply invest your time — all participating founders receive several weeks of training with the Startup Battlefield team. Your demo and presentation will be, well, pitch perfect when you deliver it to panels of top VC judges. And you’ll be thoroughly prepped to handle the Q&A that follows.

The perks: In addition to the massive interest from just about all Disrupt attendees, competing startups get exhibition space in the Startup Alley expo area, free passes to future TechCrunch events, a free membership to Extra Crunch and invitations to private events like the Startup Battlefield reception.

You’ll meet members of the Startup Battlefield alumni community — we’re talking about 922 companies (like Vurb, Mint, Yammer and, yes, Dropbox) that have collectively raised $9.5 billion and produced 117 exits. Once Disrupt ends, you’re part of this phenomenal community — just imagine the networking possibilities.

The details: Read more about how Startup Battlefield works.

TC Disrupt 2021 takes place September 21-23. If you’ve got an innovative, game-changing startup, apply to compete in Startup Battlefield. Make sure you submit your completed application before the deadline expires on May 13 11:59 pm (PT).

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at Disrupt 2021? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.