Meet The First Batch Of Vcs Set To Judge Startup Battlefield 200 At Techcrunch Disrupt 2025

From Dropbox to Cloudflare, Startup Battlefield alumni person redefined industries. Who will triumph $100,000 and nan spotlight this year? 

Startup Battlefield 200 is nan crown jewel of TechCrunch Disrupt — and this year’s title promises to beryllium unforgettable. From thousands of applicants, only nan apical 20 will return nan Stage astatine Disrupt 2025 (October 27–29, San Francisco) to transportation their imagination to panels of top-tier VCs successful beforehand of a unrecorded audience. Every contender is chasing game-changing effect — and we’re present for nan drama, nan breakthroughs, and nan large reveals.

We’re thrilled to denote our first activity of judges who will put these startups to nan trial pinch rigorous, no-holds-barred Q&A. Their candid feedback offers a uncommon model into really world-class investors size up a institution — what excites them, what concerns them, and what makes them want to return nan adjacent meeting.

Winning Startup Battlefield has launched companies for illustration Dropbox, Mint, Vurb, and Cloudflare into nan spotlight — and pinch a $100,000 equity-free prize connected nan line, nan adjacent large sanction could beryllium calved connected nan Disrupt Stage this October.

Don’t miss this high-stakes startup pitch-off connected a world stage. Learn from emerging founders what it takes to present a winning pitch, and perceive straight from nan investors judging nan contenders. Register now for Regular Bird savings.

First look: Meet nan VCs taking nan judges’ seats

Here are nan first 5 VCs fresh to thief crown nan Startup Battlefield 2025 champion — pinch much apical investors to travel soon.

Philip Clark, Investor, Thrive Capital

Philip Clark is an investor astatine Thrive Capital, wherever he has collaborated pinch starring package and hardware companies that are engineering breakthrough advancements successful AI and robotics, including Anduril, Cursor, Neuralink, Physical Intelligence, and Wiz. He antecedently invested astatine Bridgewater. Philip graduated from Stanford pinch degrees successful Computer Science and Management Science and Engineering. He continues to counsel nan Hoover Institution connected various topics successful emerging technologies.

Madison Faulkner, Partner, NEA

Madison Faulkner is simply a partner astatine NEA investing successful early-stage data, infrastructure, developer tools, information science, and AI, and she besides leads nan information and AI level internally for improved finance decision-making. Across her investing career, she has worked pinch startups including World Labs, Factory, Ceramic, Metabase, Datafold, Delphina, Mindtrip, Fixify, and others. Prior to investing, Madison was caput of information subject and instrumentality learning astatine a maturation startup, Thrasio, Head of information subject astatine Greycroft, and led a information subject squad astatine Facebook focused connected nan advertisement auction and heavy learning pinch FAIR. Madison received a BS successful Engineering from Stanford and grew up successful Colorado performing successful rodeos.

Leslie Feinzaig, Founder & General Partner, Graham & Walker VC

Leslie Feinzaig is nan laminitis and wide partner astatine Graham & Walker, an early-stage task money backing bonzer founders and ideas that break nan mold, whose ngo is to alteration nan look of nationalist markets by backing a caller defender of founders and CEOs. Prior to launching nan fund, Ms. Feinzaig was a 2x startup exec pinch 8- and 10-figure exits who started her profession nether nan tutelage of HBS Professor Clayton Christensen, writer of nan seminal mentation of disruptive innovation. 

Ilya Kirnos, Founding Partner & CTO, Signalfire

Ilya Kirnos is nan co-founder, managing partner, and CTO of ~$3 cardinal AUM early-stage task patient SignalFire. He leads nan improvement of SignalFire’s in-house Beacon AI information platform, which he’s been building for a decade pinch nan firm’s squad of AI PhDs, engineers, and information scientists. Beacon tracks much than 660 cardinal labor and 80 cardinal companies to guideline nan fund’s investing by surfacing high-quality founders and fast-growing companies, and assists its portfolio companies pinch recruiting and customer acquisition. As an investor, Ilya focuses connected backing seed to Series B companies successful endeavor infrastructure and developer tools. He supports highly method startups successful SignalFire’s portfolio, including Horizon3 (autonomous pen-testing), OneSignal (notification infrastructure), and PlanetScale (scalable databases).

Doug Pepper, Partner, ICONIQ

Doug Pepper is simply a wide partner astatine ICONIQ Growth. He joined ICONIQ Growth successful 2019. Doug has helped lead ICONIQ Growth’s investments successful Airtable, Guild Education, Reify, and others. Prior to joining ICONIQ Growth, Doug was a managing head astatine Shasta Ventures, a premier early-stage task superior firm. Previously, he was a wide partner astatine InterWest Partners for 15 years, wherever he was nan first investor successful Marketo and served connected its committee of board for 10 years. He began his profession moving astatine Goldman Sachs and Amazon.com. 

Register now to subordinate nan pitch-off action successful October

TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 marks 20 years arsenic nan launchpad for tech innovation. The startup scenery has evolved, but Disrupt remains nan spot wherever manufacture leaders style nan future. From invaluable sessions and game-changing connections to Startup Battlefield, it each happens present this October. Lock successful your summons astatine debased rates now.