Author: Neesha A. Tambe

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Apply Now! Austin founders pitch at TechCrunch Live

Hey Austin founders! TechCrunch. Is. Back. Next month, TechCrunch is shining a spotlight on the Austin tech ecosystem once again, in a special episode of TechCrunch Live taking place on April 6 at 11:30 am PT / 2:30 pm ET. We aren’t just chasing a trend — TC has always been an Austin fan…my first meetup there was over seven years ago! 

The line up is killer, but no showcase would be complete without an Austin Pitch-Off. TechCrunch editorial is on the hunt to showcase three startups. Apply here. To qualify you need to:

  • Be based in the greater Austin area
  • Have an MVP
  • Be pre-Series A

Each company will have four minutes to pitch followed by a five-minute Q&A with our fantastic judges. Companies will get private training with the Startup Battlefield team responsible for training all the TechCrunch early-stage company pitches, a mini feature on TechCrunch.com, and a complimentary table at TechCrunch Disrupt 2022 in person.

Stay tuned for more info on the illustrious judges we have coming in for the event!

If you want to apply to the pitch-off, hit up the application link here. Applications close March 22. Register to attend the event taking place on April 6 by clicking this link!

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Climate fintech company Evergrow nabs $7M seed from XYZ Venture Capital, Congruent Ventures and First Round

Evergrow, a stealth climate fintech startup, just landed over $7 million in seed funding.

With a two-pronged approach, Evergrow aims to be the world’s first dedicated carbon offtake company — rapidly funding climate developer projects and initiating long-term offtake agreements for these projects.

One of the larger seed rounds of 2021 in the industry, the raise was led by XYZ Venture Capital and Congruent Ventures with participation from First Round Capital, Garuda Ventures, MCJ Collective, Skyview Ventures and numerous other individual investors. 

The problem with climate project financing

There are core issues in launching and scaling a successful climate project. Banks require an offtake contract – guarantee purchase of carbon credits created by the project – to underwrite any financing; securing an offtake contract is difficult when a company is young.  A VC’s expectation on ROI often clashes with industry standards. Multiple stakeholders — insurance, investors, offtakers, debt investors and the project developer themselves — create long financing timelines, intensive negotiation and extremely complex underwriting processes.

Furthermore, climate risk underwriters and insurers have lacked data to create efficient underwriting processes. Each time a project turns up, there is an entirely new underwriting model developed. Finally, securing an offtake contract is done one-to-one. This means projects without an offtake agreement from the onset will have to pander to buyers after the fact.

Image Credits: Ulysses Ortega

Evergrow founders James Richards and Luke Whiting aim to streamline and standardize this process. 

“We have set the goal internally of supporting the avoidance, reduction or removal of one gigaton of CO2e by 2030; scaling to a billion tons a year shortly there after,” Richards states.

With CEO Richards’ background as a former Wall Street lawyer, serial entrepreneur and early-stage investor, and Whiting’s data and software experience as former founding COO of Clearbit, Evergrow shows promise in tackling this enormous challenge. The growth of the carbon markets over the past two years suggests the endeavor could be lucrative as the long-term offtake carbon purchase price is set. 

“[Evergrow] can reduce the complexity two ways,” Richards said. “One, we can do the work upfront to make a programmatic underwriting and funding model for each project type. And second, we can use data and technology to underwrite or do the majority of the heavy lifting and underwriting versus humans. And so our goal internally is to be almost an order of magnitude faster in terms of time to close than a traditional project financial.”

When asked for details on the underwriting structure itself and the capital partners who back them, Richards said, “We aren’t ready to describe this in detail yet, but we’re exploring a range of structures with our capital partners to meet their needs. … We’re actively building up a base of multiple financial partners.”

Image Credits: Evergrow

However, Richards did provide insight on how they will be judging risk. Evergrow will utilize historical data points to predict which sets of projects can be underwritten and how. Standardizing the underwriting process is only possible now because the industry has hit a critical mass of data points and success metrics for carbon projects.

Why long-term offtake contracts matter and how they’ll make money

Many financial institutions won’t consider financing climate projects unless they have a dedicated offtake contract. The risk is considered too great. 

“By bringing long-term offtake contracts to the carbon markets, we provide price certainty and unlock capital for these projects,” Richards said.

According to Ecosystem Marketplace, the voluntary carbon market has “posted a near-60% increase in value from last year … [with] markets on track to hit $1B in transactions by the end of this year.” Judging by the growth rate, long-term offtake contracts could generate a significant amount of returns for Evergrow’s capital partners.

Fragmented competition and market validations

There are multiple players across the different parts Evergrow aims to streamline. Long-term offtake contracts are not new to commodities, though newer in the carbon markets. There is a growing trend among corporations to create long-term offtake contracts with climate projects.

For example, Swiss Re’s partnership with Climeworks — valued up to $10 million — is one of the largest long-term offtake contracts to date. The large insurer and reinsurer SiriusPint Ltd. partnered with Parameter Climate, which provides full-service climate underwriting and distribution.

Image Credits: Evergrow

Evergrow believes that these companies are signals for market readiness, not necessarily direct competitors. 

“We were really pleased to see what Swiss Re did with Climeworks because we think it’s great validation of the market,” Richards said. “When a balance sheet as large as Swiss Re thinks that it’s worthwhile to enter this market and provide what we’re providing, that’s really great validation. The opportunity has to be measured in the billions in order for Swiss Re to even think about it or care about it. That was great validation for us.”

It’s not a marketplace

The final step after underwriting, funding and signing the offtake agreement is the eventual return to the capital partners. One competitor, Puro.earth, created a carbon removal marketplace simplifying developers’ access to offtakers. When asked about creating one-to-one marketplace similar to this, Richards was quick to clarify. 

“Evergrow does not match offtake contracts to investors on a deal-by-deal basis,” Richards said. “When you borrow money from Brex, whether on a credit card or working capital line, it’s not like Brex matches you with an investor on the backend who gets to set the price and you know, say yes or no. Instead, Brex has arranged warehouse financing and more, so Brex can give you that financing immediately. It all gets pooled and then the investors take the pool of return.”

The analogy is especially relevant because Brex CFO Michael Tannenbaum is an investor in Evergrow, as well. 

“We’re hoping to emulate that kind of a structure, where we raise one or more facilities from the capital markets into which all of our offtake contracts get pooled,” Richards said. “Investors get the benefit of aggregation and pooling and also levered exposure to the underlying.”

The set price of a long-term offtake agreement allows stability for the developer and financing partners with understandable risk growth. The silver bullet lies in Evergrow’s ability to efficiently underwrite the right products, though without the specifics on the exact underwriting model, it’s tough to fully predict their success.

Evergrow has a handful of notable individuals investing in the startup — Bridgewater Associates Sustainability investor Karen Karniol-Tambour, Plaid CEO Zach Perret and Instacart co-founder Max Mullen, among others. Evergrow will start in California and expand to the U.S. with hopes of international expansion depending on the climate project type.

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Sequoia provides founders with key insights on launching, building and fundraising

Sequoia hosted a private, sponsored AMA for founders in Startup Battlefield and Startup Alley at the virtual Disrupt SF last month. Stephanie Zhang, Konstantine Buhler, George Robson and Josephine Chen shared some key insights and best practices. It was good stuff, so we wanted to share. We took some highlights from the session and chatted with a couple more partners to dive deeper into what founders need to know — how to ask for help, fundraising principles, how to build company culture and more.

Fundraising requires the stars to align

You’ve sat on both the founder side and investor side, what is one thing you wish you could have told your founder self?

Shaun Maguire: I think most founders don’t appreciate how random fundraising is. Having sat in the room for five years now, it really requires the stars to align for an investment to happen. It requires finding a champion — in order to find a champion you have to find them at the right time. Maybe they have done two other investments this year. They feel too busy. They take on board seats and don’t have the bandwidth when you meet with them. Or you’re catching them on a bad day. Or it’s an industry they had invested in previously with a company that didn’t work. There is a lot of randomness.

The firm can feel like their investment pace is too high because they invested in three companies the week prior. So now the week you’re pitching them, they feel like the pace is too high, so the bar is now higher than it was a week ago. Ninety percent of the time it’s randomness and it’s not you. 

What are things a founder can do to prepare for when the stars align?

Shaun Maguire: If someone is going to join the board of your company, it’s a long-term partnership. It’s a 10+ year commitment. A lot of founders think they should only meet VCs in the fundraising process. They want to hold the meetings when they have the deck ready. Of the 15 boards I’ve been on, I’ve only invested in one founder, where I met them within the month of the investment process. All of the others, I met them three months before they came to raise. Personally, if I’m entering into a long-term relationship, I want to know them as a person and get longitudinal data. I want to see how they have been performing over time. 

What would you say to founders who are not “typical founders”? How do you break through the pattern-matching framework some VCs have in their head?

Shaun Maguire: Identify your high-level ambition to start a company, and then work backwards. If that’s my goal, what are the stepping stones I need to get there? I personally had a 1.0 GPA in high school and had to recover from that. I thought a lot about stepping stone paths. I wanted to go to a good college…so I went to community college first. I thought about: How am I going to stand out? I need to go do something crazy and stand out. I need to do something different. 

Reverse engineer it. Are there any immediate things I, as a founder, can do that are stepping stones to the bigger goals. Second piece, be really persistent. And it’s not what people want to hear. With Escape Dynamics [Shaun Maguire’s first company], we had to pitch 100 investors and eventually found one that would work with us. 

Tactics to prepare for fundraising

It’s a challenge to raise. What do you do when you don’t have a lead and you need a lead? How do you cross that bridge?

Stephanie Zhang: Treat fundraising as you would recruiting critical team members. It’s invaluable to find the right partner, especially at the very beginning of the company. I like to think of it as a compass: A small degree change in the direction of your company in month one has an outsized impact on where you will be 10 years out. If it’s a challenge to raise and you don’t have a lead investor, I would evaluate whether additional capital is absolutely necessary, and if so, how much the company truly needs. The earliest rounds are the most expensive dilution for a founder — and will only compound over the years — so it’s important to raise as much as the company requires to grow and strive for a lead investor that can have a transformative impact over the long term. 

When should a founder turn down an investment even if they are running out of runway?

Stephanie Zhang: The value of having the right partners — a strong brand and network, a team who rolls up their sleeves alongside you, and someone who cares about you as a person and founder — compounds over time and provides incredible signaling for your company. The reverse is also true. There are lots of options for capital these days; it’s up to founders to recognize the ones who offer real value, not valuation. Always ask yourself: Can this partner truly add value and help me bend the arc of my company? Cut through the marketing noise by talking to founders who have worked with that partner over years. Ask about the good and bad times, as well as the successful and less successful outcomes  — this will help you truly discern the differences among investors. Think about which partner you want by your side for the next 10-20 years and who you want to turn to during the highs and lows of your company-building journey. 

What recommendations do you have for founders who are on the cutting edge of things that investors may not know how to invest in or may not understand the space of?

Shaun Maguire: It’s really important to understand the [min rule decision making] psychology and that’s what you’re dealing with as a founder because it can change the tactics that you use. It’s hard when you are doing something cutting edge because there is less pattern matching for everyone in the partnership. First you need to find a champion and then you need to find the most negative person in the firm and try to win them over. 

How does a previous startup failure factor into your decision to invest in a new company?

Shaun Maguire: A startup can fail for a variety of reasons, so we check any bias at the door by decoupling the success or failure of a business from the quality of the team. When we partner with a second-time founder, we talk a lot about their former experience to gauge their ability to reflect and carry those learnings into a new chapter. 

What are other success markers outside revenue that you look for in early-stage startups?

Stephanie Zhang: We look for founders who are building companies that will become generational and shape history. The most important thing we look for is a special team: one that deeply understands the problem they are solving, has a unique and compelling insight that’s shaped their way of going about the problem, has grit and ambition to take them through the long haul, and has commercial instincts to understand how a compelling product can be over time to become an enduring, independent business.

Running a successful startup

What’s one of the hardest parts for founders building companies in the early stage?

George Robson: Early-stage startups have an abundance of choice, yet they also have finite resources. It’s important for founders to prioritize in a thoughtful way. For example, when looking to expand internationally, focus on the key questions that matter, such as: ‘who are your customers?’ and ‘where can you build a repeatable GTM function?

When should a founder talk to an investor about issues/red flags/problems?

George Robson: Similar to other relationships in life, the connection between an investor and founder is built on trust. Founders should be transparent with their investors and feel safe flagging issues early so they can help troubleshoot. If we’ve done our job well, nothing we discuss at a board meeting should ever be a surprise, as we’re supporting our founders to build their businesses everyday.  

At what point does someone deserve a co-founder title?

Jess Lee: There’s no ‘one path’ to finding or becoming a co-founder. I was retroactively made a co-founder of Polyvore as the founders felt I deserved it based on my contributions — and that’s always meant a lot to me. I was technically the first hire and not there from day one, but I acted like an owner, poured my heart and soul into the work and helped shape the culture. In the end, I was also just lucky that Pasha, Guangwei and Jianing were generous people who went out of their way to give me the title and even some of their own shares. I’ll always be grateful for that.

Culture comes up a lot. Thoughts? What are the two main tactical steps companies can take to build a strong culture in the beginning?

George Robson: Don’t compromise on people. Put culture first at your company and codify your culture early.

Jess Lee: It’s never too early to define your culture. In fact, in our Company Design Program — which gives early-stage founders the learnings and community to build an enduring company — we provide founders with a framework for culture: values → behaviors → stories. Values are the fundamental beliefs and guiding principles of the company, ideally stated in a pithy, memorable way. Behaviors are how you want to see people act, based on those values. Stories are the real-life anecdotes of when your company lived those values. The stories are especially important, since that’s what people remember. They help make the company culture tangible and easier to operationalize. As an example, people know the story of the Airbnb founders selling cereal to make ends meet or of Jeff Bezos using doors for desks, which embody their values of entrepreneurship and frugality, respectively.

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How Lunchclub landed a preemptive term sheet from Lightspeed

In less than seven days, Lunchclub co-founder Vlad Novakovski had a sizable term sheet in hand from Lightspeed Ventures, despite his startup not looking to raise at the time. How did that happen? A sticky product experience with the customer feedback and growth to back it up made the startup an investment opportunity Lightspeed’s Nicole Quinn just couldn’t pass up.

This week, Novakovski and Quinn joined us on TechCrunch Live to give a breakdown of Lunchclub’s Series A deck and the details on how they connected toward the beginning of the pandemic. Lunchclub is an AI-driven networking tool virtually connecting professionals across multiple industries and levels.

TechCrunch Live, formerly known as Extra Crunch Live, takes place every Wednesday at noon PDT/3 p.m. EDT. Each week, audiences get to hear the backstory, best practices and should-haves from founders and the investors who led their round. In the second half, founders in the audience get to live-pitch directly to the guests.

Take a look at some key learnings from our chat with Vlad and Nicole below, and check out the full recording of the episode with the live pitch-off.

A well placed intro goes a long way

The impact of your early-stage investors can go a long way. Nicole Quinn discovered Lunchclub through one of the company’s initial investors in the early months of the pandemic in 2020.

“I received an email from an angel investor in Lunchclub, Greg Arrese, saying, ‘Lunchclub just started doing fireside chats,” Nicole recalled. “These fireside chats have really found product-market fit. I mean, we just launched them and they’ve got thousands of people joining them.’”

Initially connecting with Vlad to participate in a fireside chat and learn more about the company on Wednesday, conversations quickly evolved resulting in a term sheet on Monday, less than a week after meeting.

Introductions to investors from other founders are often touted as the best way to get in front of a VC. In Vlad’s case, it was the investor who made a difference.

“I think as a founder … that speaks to [the] kind of value having a strong … angel investor network when you do your seed or your pre-seed,” Vlad added.

Consumer feedback is everything

Founders diligently build products to solve a problem but the true test is with the customers themselves. Novakovski’s Series A deck had customer feedback in the form of social media screenshots but had limited data and case studies — a change he wished he had made before.

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Announcing the Startup Battlefield companies pitching at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021

Today, TechCrunch is excited to announce the 20 startups pitching on stage in this year’s Startup Battlefield. Selected from the most competitive batch in TC history, selected founders from across the globe will pitch on the virtual stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021. Startups will be competing for $100,000 in equity-free prize money and the attention of international press and top investors from around the world.

With just over a 1.5% acceptance rate, the startups in this year’s cohort are phenomenal. From lithium battery chemical recycling to smart media, blockchain infrastructure to student-centric educational software, and Sub-Saharan African fin tech to cultured meat production, this batch of companies is sure to wow the investors and the audience. Startups featured range across all verticals with groundbreaking innovation in ag tech, women’s genetics and lifestyle based therapeutics, cyber security, lasers, fin tech and consumer hardware.

TC aims to pick companies from a range of industries. It’s apparent that this next wave of founders are very much focused on building unicorns and also building deeply impactful technologies.  A unique highlight of this batch are more companies in both the healthtech/medtech space and clean tech/sustainability space.

Each founder has trained with the Startup Battlefield team to develop their pitch, craft their stories, polish their launch strategy, strengthen their go to market and create amazing live product demos so you can see the innovation first hand. Each team will have six minutes to pitch followed by a six-minute Q&A with our esteemed panel of judges – all experts in VC and successful companies. On Thursday, a select few startups will pitch in the Startup Battlefield Final Round — with a new panel of expert judges.

Startup Battlefield starts on Tuesday, September 21st at 10:45 a.m. Pacific Time, with Startup Battlefield moderator and TechCrunch Managing Editor, Matt Burns. To watch the pitches, join us at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 here. Videos of the pitches will be made available after the event as well.

Let’s check out the companies:

Tuesday 

Session 1: 10:45 a.m. – 11:50 a.m. PT

Enlightapp, Luos, HerVest, Tatum, Happaning*

Session 2: 12:55 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. PT

Verdi, EyeGage, Animal Alternative Technologies, RoboDeck, Adventr

Wednesday

Session 3: 9:45 a.m. – 10:50 a.m. PT

Prenome, Tide Foundation, The Blue Box Biomedical Solutions, Koa, Cellino*

Session 3: 12:00 p.m. – 1:05 p.m. PT

StethoMe, FLITE Material Sciences, Knight by Keep Technologies, Carbix, Nth Cycle

Thursday

Finals begin at 10:35 a.m. PT. Companies will be announced online Thursday night.

*As a part of Startup Alley, companies are eligible for the Wild Card. These are the companies selected for Wild Card and can compete in Startup Battlefield. They are selected shortly before the event.

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Announcing the startups pitching at TC Early Stage

This Thursday and Friday, TechCrunch will host Early Stage – a virtual bootcamp for early stage founders. After the success of the spring event, on Friday, TC will feature 10 phenomenal early-stage startups to on the virtual stage. Hailing form around the States and the globe, founders will pitch on live, for five minutes, followed by an intense Q&A with our expert panel of judges.

The judges for this pitch-off will be Ben Sun (Primary Venture Partners), Doug Landis (Emergence Capital), Leah Solivan (Fuel Capital) and Shardul Shah (Index Ventures).  Unlike last time, there will be no final round. Each company will only have one chance to impress the judges and the audience!

Alright, alright. I know you want to see who made the cut. Join us on Friday, July 9th to watch the second ever TC Early Stage Pitch-Off. Let’s take a look:

Session 1: 9:00 a.m. – 9:50 a.m. PDT

Mi Terro (City of Industry, CA, USA) – “The world’s first advanced material company that partners with food companies and farmers to create home compostable, single-use plastic-alternative packaging materials made from plant-based agricultural waste – this is a first-of-its-kind approach.

Press Sports App (Atlanta, GA, USA) – A lifelong sports social network for athletes from all levels and sports. Their deeply engaged community is creating system of record starting at the amateur level that has never been built before.

Snowball Wealth (San Francisco, CA, USA) – Provides personalized guidance to pay off debt and build wealth for the 30M women+ in America with student debt. Snowball provides users with a free student loan plan, which helps users save an average of $6K. They’re expanding to include a financial roadmap that’s community-driven and personalized so women+ can build wealth even as they pay down their debt.

My Expat Taxes (Vienna, Austria) – MyExpatTaxes is the leading U.S. expat tax software that guides users through the tax filing process faster and more affordable than any other competitor in the industry. It automates international tax treaties and expat tax benefits, helping U.S. expats stay compliant and claim thousands of dollars in refunds.

Speeko (Chicago, Illinois, USA) – AI-powered feedback on your voice in areas like pace, fillers, inclusivity, conciseness, and enunciation. Based on your speaking style, you’re matched with interactive exercises, courses, and vocal warm-ups. It’s like a gym membership for your voice, where you build muscle memory for speaking clearly and confidently.

Session 2: 10:10 a.m. – 11:05 a.m. PDT

Universal Prequal (Marlboro, NJ, USA) – Helps construction companies effectively manage risk by enabling them to find and vet qualified project teams capable of doing the work. Instead of the paper-intensive, time-consuming, expensive approach that exists throughout the industry today, our solution is online, easy-to-use, and cost-effective. Customers will know us as the national resource for managing risk based on comprehensive, reliable construction information.

T2D2.ai (New York City, NY, USA) – Provides continuous AI and computer vision-driven monitoring of buildings, bridges and other infrastructural assets. The T2D2 portal and dashboard gives asset owners and managers a detailed picture of all visible damage conditions – rank ordered by severity and geo-tagged for location information, so they can focus preventative maintenance efforts and avoid higher downstream repair costs as well as potential safety issues.

Boomerang (Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil) – A marketplace for consumer goods rental. We connect retailers, brands, and rental stores with customers that just want to use a product instead of owning it. For suppliers, Boomerang is a plug-and-play rental platform offering logistics, insurance, and online payments solution.

Stash Global (Wilmington, DE, USA) – Turned the most damaging cyber-attack of all, ransomware, into just another business problem that can be solved with the click of a button – without paying a cent (or cyber coin) of ransom. The No Ransom Ransomware Solution does it all: restores files; prevents access of frozen file content by attackers; eliminates ransom extortion.

Vyrill (San Francisco, CA, USA) – With the most powerful AI driven, in-video search, Vyrill is a fan video discovery, insights and content marketing platform enabling brand marketers to supercharge brand awareness and revenue with fan led content such as video reviews, unboxing, how-to videos and more. Vyrill is a Google for fan video and creators, capturing who, what, where and when –inside millions of videos.”

Winner Announcement: 11:30 a.m. PDT

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Announcing the Early Stage Pitch-Off judges

TechCrunch Early Stage Part Two is set to take place July 8th and 9th. You can still shoot your shot to pitch to an amazing panel of judges and thousands of TC viewers. TechCrunch editors will select 10 founders from around the world to pitch on stage July 9th. Apply here.

Startups will have 5 minutes to pitch their companies, business models and innovative ideas – followed by a Q&A with our superb panel of judges. The winner will get a feature article on TechCrunch.com, one-year free subscription to Extra Crunch and a complimentary Founder Pass to TechCrunch Disrupt this fall.

TechCrunch Early Stage Part Two is set to be a game-changer for founders looking to take their startups to the next level. At this two-day virtual event, early-stage founders can take part in highly interactive group sessions with top investors and ecosystem experts, in fields ranging from fundraising and marketplace positioning, to growth marketing and content development.

Without further ado, here are your judges for the Early Stage Pitch-Off:

Ben Sun, Primary Venture Partners

Image Credits: Primary Venture Partners

“Ben is a co-founder and General Partner at Primary Venture Partners. He has been a serial entrepreneur and investor as a co-founder of LaunchTime an incubator and investor in early stage tech startups and as a co-founder of Community Connect which was one of the first social networking companies. Ben focuses his investing activities on primarily consumer-facing companies. His previous investments include Coupang, Jet.com, MakeSpace, Ollie, Mirror, Slice, Bounce Exchange, Selfmade, Shoptalk and Penrose Hill. Ben has been active in the NYC tech community for almost 20 years. Prior to working as an entrepreneur and investor, Ben worked at Merrill Lynch in the Technology Investment Banking Group. He graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in Economics.

Leah Solivan, Fuel Capital

Image Credits:

Leah Solivan is General Partner at Fuel Capital, where she invests in early-stage companies across consumer technology, hardware, marketplaces, and retail. She’s passionate about supporting teams who are taking on world-changing ideas. Leah relates so well to founders because she is one herself. She created one of the most widely recognized consumer brands of the past decade with TaskRabbit. As TaskRabbit’s CEO for eight years, Leah scaled the company to 44 cities and raised more than $50 million. In 2016, Leah transitioned into the role of executive chairwoman and in 2017, TaskRabbit was acquired by IKEA.

 

Shardul Shah, Index Ventures

Image Credits: Index Ventures

Shardul joined Index in 2008. He focuses on security, cloud infrastructure, and enterprise software investments. He is a director of Attack IQ, Brightback, Castle Intelligence, Datadog (NASDAQ:DDOG), Expel, Gatsby, and Wiz.io. Shardul was previously a director of Adallom (Microsoft), Sourceclear (CA Technologies), Koality (Docker), Lacoon (Check Point), Base (Zendesk) and an investor in Duo Security (Cisco). After graduating from the University of Chicago, Shardul worked with Summit Partners where he focused on healthcare and internet technologies.”

 

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Just 12 hours left to apply to Startup Battlefield at TC Disrupt 2021

We’ve been urging you to apply to Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 for weeks now, and you have just over 12 hours left before the application window slams shut on May 27 at 11:59 pm (PT). Don’t procrastinate — the experience alone, whether you win the $100,000 prize or not, can improve the trajectory of your business.

Case in point: Mollie Breen started out as a mathematician at the National Security Agency before co-founding an IoT/OT security startup called Perygee. She and her team competed in Startup Battlefield last year at Disrupt 2020. Although they didn’t reach the finals, Breen has plenty to say about the experience. Here’s what she shared with us in a quick Q&A.

TC: Why did you apply to Startup Battlefield?                                             

Breen: I admired the leadership and growth of other companies that, at one point, were Startup Battlefield contestants. I noticed they had similar traction to us when they applied, and their products resembled ours in their ability to disrupt the respective industry.

TC: What was the training process like?

Breen: It was incredibly valuable both in the short term and long term. Every team gets a weekly session with the Battlefield editor. Together you rehearse and go over every iteration of the pitch line-by-line and slide-by-slide. After each session, I walked away with constructive feedback on everything — the content, the speaking style and even the font color on a particular slide.

This was a unique opportunity, and we put in extra hours to be ahead of schedule, sent drafts for review in the off hours and even doubled down on additional practice with Q&As. As a result, we couldn’t have been more prepared for pitch day. And the training has stayed with Perygee well past the sessions and the competition.

TC: What did it feel like to pitch at Disrupt?

Breen: Pitching at Disrupt was, in some ways, like other pitches except that you have an international audience. Since, at that point, we had practiced our pitch dozens of times, the real unknown during the competition was the Q&A with the VC judges.

There was additional pressure to answer succinctly and convincingly within a time constraint that you wouldn’t have during a normal one-on-one pitch. But with the prep help from the TechCrunch team, I felt ready to speak in front of such a large audience. I encourage anyone who might be nervous about the big stage to go for it and trust you’ll have more than enough preparation when you get there.

TC: What was the post-pitch impact? Did you meet investors, press or other key partners?

Breen: It helped accelerate our progress. Following Battlefield, we closed an oversubscribed fundraising round. We acquired additional beta users, including our first beta user who messaged us after reading about Perygee on TechCrunch. We also gained numerous press opportunities to share our story.

It’s almost a year since Startup Battlefield, and I’m still impressed by how many people start the conversation saying they watched the pitch while reading our company’s background. It’s a reminder that the opportunities created by being a TechCrunch Battlefield company continue.

TC: Do you have any great news to share since your pitch?

Breen: At TechCrunch Battlefield we were a small team doing MVP testing and just about to start raising. Since the pitch, we have scaled on all fronts. We grew the founding team and the engineering team, and we deployed the product to enterprise networks. Some of those deployments include contacts who reached out because of TechCrunch — and we raised our seed round!

TC: Is there anything else you’d like to share?

Breen: I’m grateful for the camaraderie and relationships we developed with the other teams. What you didn’t see on stage during the pitches was all of us cheering one another on from the group chat or social media feed. Even now, we continue to support one another through navigating business questions or promoting product launches. If it weren’t for Startup Battlefield, I would never have met this awesome group of startups.

You have just 24 hours left to channel your inner Mollie Breen. Apply to Startup Battlefield before the deadline expires on May 27 at 11:59 pm (PT). Get moving!

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Win $100,000: Apply to Startup Battlefield at TC Disrupt 2021

You’ve been hard at work building your game-changing startup. Diligent in its care and feeding so that, one day soon, it will grow into the mighty unicorn you envision. If you fit that description, we want you to apply to compete in the Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 on September 21-23.

Any early-stage startup founder with an MVP — regardless of your category or geographic location — is eligible to apply. But here’s the thing. The window for tossing your hat into the ring is shrinking rapidly. Don’t wait — apply to compete in Startup Battlefield before the window slams shut on May 27 at 11:59 pm (PT).

Let’s run down the list of many benefits that come from competing in the world’s most famous startup launching pad.

Perfect pitch: All competing startups get weeks of free training with the TC Startup Battlefield training squad. You’ll hone your presentations skills, polish your business model and pitch with cool, calm confidence come game day.

Global exposure: An all-virtual Startup Battlefield means that thousands upon thousands of startup influencers, icons, tech media, potential investors, customers, collaborators and developers around the world will tune in to watch this always-epic event. All competitors — win or lose — bask in, and benefit from, this global, equal-opportunity spotlight.

Plenty of perks: Battlefield gladiators are TC Disrupt VIPs. You’ll enjoy lots of complimentary bennies including exhibition space in virtual Startup Alley, event passes, tickets to future TC events, a private reception with members of the Startup Battlefield alumni community, access to the CrunchMatch networking platform and a free subscription to Extra Crunch.

Mucho moola: One startup will rise above the rest to claim the Disrupt Cup, the title of Startup Battlefield Champion and take home $100,000 of equity-free prize money. Ka-ching.

Of course, you’ll make your pitch to, and then answer questions from, panels of expert judges. Who are these mystical beings you need to impress? So far, we’ve announced two, with plenty more to come. We’re thrilled to have both Alexa von Tobel, co-founder and managing partner of Inspired Capital, and Terri Burns, a partner at GV (formerly known as Google Ventures) on board.

Remember those influencers and potential investors we mentioned earlier? We’re talking about folks like Rachael Wilcox, a creative producer at Volvo Cars. Rachel told us that she goes to TechCrunch events to “find new and interesting companies, make new business connections and look for startups with investment potential.” She also shared her thoughts about Startup Battlefield.

“The Startup Battlefield translated easily to the virtual format. You could see the excitement, enthusiasm and possibility of the young founders, and I loved that. You could also ask questions through the chat feature, and you don’t always have time for questions at a live event.”

Your unicorn dreams might be on an early-stage startup budget, but this is a huge opportunity for you to gain global exposure and have a good shot at winning $100,000. Apply to compete in Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 on September 21-23. Don’t wait — we stop accepting applications on May 27 at 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.

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Deadline extended: Apply to Startup Battlefield at TC Disrupt 2021

When you’re head-down and nose to the grindstone — I’m looking at all you hard-working early-stage startup founders — it’s easy to miss a deadline for an outstanding opportunity. Case in point: competing in Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 in September.

We want every game-changing, innovative startup — from anywhere around the world — to have a shot at massive exposure to investors, media and other influential unicorn-makers. The $100,000 in equity-free prizemoney would be nice, too, right? That’s why we’re extending our application deadline for another full week.

It won’t cost you a thing to apply or to participate, so don’t let this trajectory-changing opportunity slip past you. Apply to Startup Battlefield here before May 27 at 11:59 p.m. (PT).

The TechCrunch editorial team will vet every application and ultimately choose roughly 20 startups to go head-to-head. Each team receives weeks of free, rigorous coaching from our seasoned Battlefield team. Your pitch, presentation skills and business model will reach new heights of excellence. You’ll also be ready to deftly handle all the questions you’ll receive from our expert VC judges.

Startup Battlefield plays out over several rounds, with the field progressively narrowing. Each time you make the cut, you’ll repeat your pitch-and-answer session to a new set of judges. All that training, prep and focus leads to a final showdown and one last grab for the brass ring. And then it’s up to the judges to decide which stand-out startup wins the championship and that huge check.

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While only one startup wins the money and the title, every team that competes benefits from standing in a global spotlight. Sean Huang, co-founder of Matidor, competed in Startup Battlefield at Disrupt 2020. His team was one of the five finalists. Here’s what he said about his experience:

“Going through Startup Battlefield helped us simplify and improve our pitch. It helped us not only with brand messaging, but also to win other pitch competitions after Battlefield. By pitching in the finals, we booked a demo with one of the final panelists. We received inbound investment interest from 12 Tier-1 investors, and eight potential key clients came to our website for a demo session. We also received an endorsement letter for our Y Combinator application from a fellow Battlefield participant, with whom we formed a great connection.”

You’re head down and focused — that’s why we’re giving you a one-week extension. So… stop, look up and grab this opportunity to take your startup to whole new levels. Get your nose off that grindstone and apply to Startup Battlefield here before May 27 at 11:59 p.m. (PT).

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