In 2005, Keith Teare and Michael Arrington founded a blog dedicated to technology oriented startups of the Silicon Valley. Their blog covered the latest news in the IT industry and reviewed new Internet products. Over the years, TechCrunch has grown to become a large media company. Its network of websites reaches more than 12 million unique visitors and draws over 37 million page views every month. In 2010, TechChrunch was acquired by AOL, becoming one of the corporation’s leading brands.
Several years after launching the blog, its founders organized the first TechCrunch Disrupt conference dedicated to startups. The main goal of the conference is to help promising technology startups find financing. At the conference, startup representatives present their products and services on stage, competing in front of potential investors.
The first TechCrunch Disrupt events were held in San Francisco and New York. In 2011, the conference expanded to Beijing. It was the only time the Beijing edition was held as TechCrunch Disrupt. Today it is known as TechCrunch Beijing and is an independent event that doesn’t belong to the Disrupt “family”. The inaugural edition of Disrupt Europe was held in 2013 in Berlin, Germany. The next year, it moved to London, United Kingdom.
The central event of any TechCrunch Disrupt conference is the so-called Startup Battlefield. It brings early stage startups together on one stage where they compete for the Disrupt Cup, an impressive monetary prize to go along with it, and the attention of investors and media. The judges include top venture investors, TechChrunch editors, entrepreneurs, and past winners. Participation in Startip Battlefield is free and open for everyone. Previous winners include Jukedeck, Agrilyst, Liquidity Nanotech Corporation, Voltera, Crate.IO, Qwiki, Mint, Yammer, Dropbox, Zenefits, and many more.
The program of the conference also includes Startup Alley where hundreds of early stage companies showcase their products and services, CrunchMatch (a program designed to introduce investors to entrepreneurs), keynote speeches and lectures, panel discussions and press-conference, and a hackathon (programming marathon) where coders and developers have 24 hours to create a product.
In 2020, the event was held online due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Photo: techcrunch.com
