Over the past two days, 20 startups have been pitching on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, presenting live demos and answering tough questions from expert judges. Now, it’s time to unveil the five companies that will be competing in the Startup Battlefield finals.
This year’s Battlefield spanned four categories:
- Space and Physical AI
- Energy and Manufacturing
- Health Tech and Life Sciences
- Enterprise and Security
The finalists are working on everything from miniature human organs to fighting scams to computing in space. The finals will kick off tomorrow (Thursday) at 11:30 am Pacific — you can watch them on stage at Disrupt or on the livestream.
The founders will present to another panel of expert judges who will pick the winner; that winner will take home the Startup Battlefield Cup and $100,000, equity-free.
Finalists
Apate.ai
Apate deploys thousands of AI agents that masquerade as innocent victims. The agents can answer scam calls, respond to shady messages and emails, follow phishing links, and join social media groups to bait fraudsters. They pretend to be people of all stripes, with different ages, genders, and accents, speaking various languages as they try to keep scammers engaged long enough to learn something useful.
Flox Intelligence
Flox Intelligence has built a wildlife-deterrent system that works differently than the traditional methods like sirens, lights, fences, falcons, and culling. Instead, it uses edge devices with perception systems trained on wildlife behavior. A motion sensor wakes the device when it detects movement, triggering a camera that uses on-device models to identify nearby animals. The device then emits a species-appropriate sound to scare them away.
