At Disrupt 2026, Startup Battlefield 200 isn’t just a platform for founders—it’s a lens into venture capital’s evolving priorities. Between October 13–15 at San Francisco’s Moscone West, early-stage startups will pitch for six minutes—only for judges to dig into the guts of their plan through rigorous Q&A. Questions like “Can this team execute?” and “What makes this defensible?” are the fast-track to seeing which companies really have long-term promise.
This year’s judges lineup just got stronger with five new investors joining the ranks to determine who walks away with the $100,000 grand prize. They join an existing team of ten previously announced judges and will help choose which early-stage contenders have breakout potential.
Introducing the Five New Judges
Vaibhav “Dr.V” Agrawal co-founded ODDBIRD VC in 2024, targeting AI startups focused on healthcare, bio, supply chains, and automation. A physician by training witha Stanford MBA, Agrawal previously led early-stage investing at Lightspeed Venture Partners in India. Among his current investments is healthcare AI company Anterior, which has raised $64 million.
Anu Bharadwaj brings enterprise software and AI experience to the panel. As a partner at ICONIQ, she previously served as Atlassian’s president and COO, overseeing major products like Jira and Confluence. Her path also includes senior roles at Microsoft and a background in engineering.
Sho Sho Leigha Ho, now a partner at General Catalyst, invests in founders at the earliest stages. Based in San Francisco, she joined GC in 2024 and is known for supporting companies like Graylark, Autoscience, and Standard Kernel. Her work as board observer for Together AI also highlights her engagement with frontier tech.
Miloni Madan Presler focuses on growth-stage companies across enterprise software, healthcare, and security at IVP. With a background in economics and finance, and earlier experience at Summit Partners and Warburg Pincus, she brings a disciplined lens to evaluating business traction and market scale.
Aidan Madigan-Curtis of Eclipse Ventures bridges AI, IoT, computer vision, and climate tech. Before venture investing, she was part of Apple’s assembly of the Apple Watch and led operations at Samsara, helping scale it to over $1 billion in annual recurring revenue. She now also heads Eclipse’s Carbon Optimization framework to track emissions reductions across its portfolio.
Disrupt 2026 will gather over 10,000 tech leaders—VCs, founders, operators—for a one-of-a-kind view into how venture capital evaluates potential. It’s also an opportunity to catch early signals from the companies shaping tomorrow’s tech landscape. Registration closes at 11:59 p.m. PT on September 25, with organizer discounts available.
What this means: this next wave of judges reflects the growing importance of AI, health, climate action, and enterprise infrastructure in the venture world. Their backgrounds—in medical training, operating product businesses, climate-impact investing—signal what lines early founders need to cross. As Disrupt approaches, attention won’t just be on the products pitched—but how convincingly teams argue defensibility, societal impact, and execution in a crowded field.
