Startups

Announcing the Disrupt Berlin Agenda

Comment

TechCrunch Disrupt is the world’s biggest and most impactful tech startup conference, and we can’t wait to bring the hype to Berlin.

We’re very proud of the show we’ve put together and are thrilled to give you a look at what’s in store.

Editor’s Note: Not all of our speakers are included on this agenda as we like to keep a couple tricks up our sleeves. ;)

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29

Morning


Racing to the Future with Lucas Di Grassi (Roborace)

Hear from Roborace’s new CEO and former F1 driver Lucas Di Grassi on how Roborace is merging human driving and artificial intelligence to build a better racing series. Including a sneak peak at their latest vehicle! Main Stage @ 9:05AM

A New Start with Anne Kjaer-Riechert (ReDI School of Digital Integration), Aline Sara (NaTakallam)

The world has been shocked by the plight of refugees from both war zones and natural disasters in the last few years. But the tech world has stepped up to the plate to assist refugees and NGOs, in this case with ReDI School’s hugely successful code school for refugees and NaTakallam’s global platform for refugees to teach languages. Main Stage @ 9:25AM

In The Money with Pieter van der Does (Adyen)

Payments company Adyen has achieved that rare thing all startups hope for but many do not achieve: it went public as a profitable company with a huge IPO pop. Hear how a startup quietly built up a payments empire under the radar, out of Amsterdam. Main Stage @ 9:45AM

Regaining Momentum in Europe with Saul Klein (LocalGlobe)

Saul Klein has long had an outsized imprint on Europe’s tech scene, as an operator, founder and investor, as well as the mastermind behind the global meet up concept OpenCoffee and the “YC of Europe,” Seedcamp. We’ll talk with Klein about creating a sustainable ecosystem, as well as how Europe now competes against faster-growing markets, including in China. Main Stage @ 10:05AM

STARTUP BATTLEFIELD

The hottest startups compete for the Disrupt Cup, $50,000 USD, and eternal glory. Main Stage @ 10:50AM

Bootstrapping Your Way To The Top with Denys Zhadanov (Readdle)

Readdle, a strartup out of Ukraine, has racked up 100 million downloads of its popular PDF app, and is now making a bold move into other productivity tools, all without a single dime of funding. It can be done! Hear Denys Zhadanov tell his startup’s story. Main Stage @ 11:55AM

STARTUP BATTLEFIELD

The hottest startups compete for the Disrupt Cup, $50,000 USD, and eternal glory. Main Stage @ 1:15PM

Afternoon


Sharing the Ride-Sharing Industry with Daniel Ramot (Via), and other speakers to be announced

It’s time to say it: there won’t be a single global leader in the ride-sharing industry. Many companies will survive and compete in dozens of countries with different offerings. But how do you beat Uber at its own game? Main Stage @ 2:40PM

Pioneering Crypto with Jamie Burke (Outlier Ventures), Vinay Gupta (Mattereum), and other speakers to be announced

Investing in Crypto and Blockchain startups has never been hotter. We’ll hear from these key pioneers in the field who are feeling their way in this brand new arena. Main Stage @ 3:45PM

Making Everyone A Secondary VC with Kaidi Ruusalepp (Funderbeam)

As startups stay private longer and more people want to gamble on them, CEO Kaidi Ruusalepp will discuss the risks and rewards of would-be investors turning to Funderbeam’s secondary market. Main Stage @ 4:10PM

STARTUP BATTLEFIELD

The hottest startups compete for the Disrupt Cup, $50,000 USD, and eternal glory. Main Stage @ 4:30PM


FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30TH

Morning


Going Global with Brynne Kennedy (Topia)

Topia’s Brynne Kennedy will discuss building the tools that enable companies to manage the 21st century mobile workforce. Main Stage @ 9:25AM

The European Fintech Fever with Ricky Knox (Tandem) and other speakers to be announced

Thanks to a unified market, fintech startups have boomed in Europe. And yet, with so many megarounds and startups doing the same thing, are we experiencing a fintech fever? Main Stage @ 9:45AM

Learning Languages and Building a Startup with Julie Hansen and Markus Witte (Babbel)

Babbel is now managing the top-grossing language learning app in the world. It’s a European success story. The company is now facing a new challenge: conquering the U.S. Main Stage @ 10:10AM

Building Your Next Car, Today with Laurin Hahn (Sono Motors), Ole Harms (MOIA)

The car industry has never been so exciting. Everybody is working on the car of the future, which will represent the perfect combination of automation, connectivity, electric motors and mobility services. But who will do it better: Startups or car giants trying to reinvent themselves? Including a sneak peak of Sono’s new vehicle. Main Stage @ 11:05AM

Becoming a “Unicorn Factory” with Philipe Botteri, Sonali De Rycker, Luciana Lixandru, and Harry Nelis (Accel)

Accel London has built a very strong brand in Europe over the past 18 years, with bets that include Deliveroo and Supercell. Yet staying relevant means continuing to bet on winners. How does Accel think about its heritage and its future, and what does that mean for the startups looking to work with the firm? Main Stage @ 11:30AM

Afternoon


European Space Tech Comes of Age with Mike Collett (Promus Ventures), Rafal Modrzewski (ICEYE)

Mike Collett has built a reputation as a savvy investor in deep-technology software and is now an investor in one of Europe’s hottest space-tech startups, ICEYE, which ICEYE recently became the first company to launch a Synthetic-Aperture Radar satellite under 100 kilograms which can scan the globe in 3D. Where does space technology go from here? Main Stage @ 1:00PM

STARTUP BATTLEFIELD FINALS

The hottest startups compete for the Disrupt Cup, $50,000 USD, and eternal glory. Main Stage @ 1:45PM

Emerging Market Tech is About to Explode with Lizzie Chapman (Zestmoney) and Alan Mamedi (Truecaller)

With a $100M warchest, Truecaller has gone from a simple anti-spam service to a payments and chat service for huge new markets like India. Meanwhile, Zest is India’s first completely automated consumer digital lending platform which is giving consumers there new options in financing. We’ll get into how these two pioneers are expanding. Main Stage @ 3:30PM

Selling Fashion in a Post-Web World with Sophie Hill (Threads)

Threads, a startup out of London, has found the perfect way to sell to its target millennial customer: forget the web and focus on messaging apps instead. That bold choice has helped the company land tons of clients and millions in backing from VCs who want in on the action. Hear from founder Sophie Hills about how she got here, and what will come next. Main Stage @ 4:20PM

Can Starling Become the Next HSBC with Anne Boden (Starling Bank)

Starling has now convinced hundreds of thousands of people, but it is still far behind the biggest consumer banks. Anne Boden has worked in the banking industry for decades, so she knows what’s missing to jump from a small competitor to a dominant player. Main Stage @ 4:40PM

Join us at Disrupt Berlin (29-30 November) today!

More TechCrunch

Welcome back to TechCrunch’s Week in Review — TechCrunch’s newsletter recapping the week’s biggest news. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. Over the past eight years,…

Fisker collapsed under the weight of its founder’s promises

What is AI? We’ve put together this non-technical guide to give anyone a fighting chance to understand how and why today’s AI works.

WTF is AI?

President Joe Biden has vetoed H.J.Res. 109, a congressional resolution that would have overturned the Securities and Exchange Commission’s current approach to banks and crypto. Specifically, the resolution targeted the…

President Biden vetoes crypto custody bill

Featured Article

Industries may be ready for humanoid robots, but are the robots ready for them?

How large a role humanoids will play in that ecosystem is, perhaps, the biggest question on everyone’s mind at the moment.

2 hours ago
Industries may be ready for humanoid robots, but are the robots ready for them?

Featured Article

VCs are selling shares of hot AI companies like Anthropic and xAI to small investors in a wild SPV market

VCs are clamoring to invest in hot AI companies, willing to pay exorbitant share prices for coveted spots on their cap tables. Even so, most aren’t able to get into such deals at all. Yet, small, unknown investors, including family offices and high-net-worth individuals, have found their own way to get shares of the hottest…

3 hours ago
VCs are selling shares of hot AI companies like Anthropic and xAI to small investors in a wild SPV market

The fashion industry has a huge problem: Despite many returned items being unworn or undamaged, a lot, if not the majority, end up in the trash. An estimated 9.5 billion…

Deal Dive: How (Re)vive grew 10x last year by helping retailers recycle and sell returned items

Tumblr officially shut down “Tips,” an opt-in feature where creators could receive one-time payments from their followers.  As of today, the tipping icon has automatically disappeared from all posts and…

You can no longer use Tumblr’s tipping feature 

Generative AI improvements are increasingly being made through data curation and collection — not architectural — improvements. Big Tech has an advantage.

AI training data has a price tag that only Big Tech can afford

Keeping up with an industry as fast-moving as AI is a tall order. So until an AI can do it for you, here’s a handy roundup of recent stories in the world…

This Week in AI: Can we (and could we ever) trust OpenAI?

Jasper Health, a cancer care platform startup, laid off a substantial part of its workforce, TechCrunch has learned.

General Catalyst-backed Jasper Health lays off staff

Featured Article

Live Nation confirms Ticketmaster was hacked, says personal information stolen in data breach

Live Nation says its Ticketmaster subsidiary was hacked. A hacker claims to be selling 560 million customer records.

22 hours ago
Live Nation confirms Ticketmaster was hacked, says personal information stolen in data breach

Featured Article

Inside EV startup Fisker’s collapse: how the company crumbled under its founders’ whims

An autonomous pod. A solid-state battery-powered sports car. An electric pickup truck. A convertible grand tourer EV with up to 600 miles of range. A “fully connected mobility device” for young urban innovators to be built by Foxconn and priced under $30,000. The next Popemobile. Over the past eight years, famed vehicle designer Henrik Fisker…

22 hours ago
Inside EV startup Fisker’s collapse: how the company crumbled under its founders’ whims

Late Friday afternoon, a time window companies usually reserve for unflattering disclosures, AI startup Hugging Face said that its security team earlier this week detected “unauthorized access” to Spaces, Hugging…

Hugging Face says it detected ‘unauthorized access’ to its AI model hosting platform

Featured Article

Hacked, leaked, exposed: Why you should never use stalkerware apps

Using stalkerware is creepy, unethical, potentially illegal, and puts your data and that of your loved ones in danger.

23 hours ago
Hacked, leaked, exposed: Why you should never use stalkerware apps

The design brief was simple: each grind and dry cycle had to be completed before breakfast. Here’s how Mill made it happen.

Mill’s redesigned food waste bin really is faster and quieter than before

Google is embarrassed about its AI Overviews, too. After a deluge of dunks and memes over the past week, which cracked on the poor quality and outright misinformation that arose…

Google admits its AI Overviews need work, but we’re all helping it beta test

Welcome to Startups Weekly — Haje‘s weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. In…

Startups Weekly: Musk raises $6B for AI and the fintech dominoes are falling

The product, which ZeroMark calls a “fire control system,” has two components: a small computer that has sensors, like lidar and electro-optical, and a motorized buttstock.

a16z-backed ZeroMark wants to give soldiers guns that don’t miss against drones

The RAW Dating App aims to shake up the dating scheme by shedding the fake, TikTok-ified, heavily filtered photos and replacing them with a more genuine, unvarnished experience. The app…

Pitch Deck Teardown: RAW Dating App’s $3M angel deck

Yes, we’re calling it “ThreadsDeck” now. At least that’s the tag many are using to describe the new user interface for Instagram’s X competitor, Threads, which resembles the column-based format…

‘ThreadsDeck’ arrived just in time for the Trump verdict

Japanese crypto exchange DMM Bitcoin confirmed on Friday that it had been the victim of a hack resulting in the theft of 4,502.9 bitcoin, or about $305 million.  According to…

Hackers steal $305M from DMM Bitcoin crypto exchange

This is not a drill! Today marks the final day to secure your early-bird tickets for TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 at a significantly reduced rate. At midnight tonight, May 31, ticket…

Disrupt 2024 early-bird prices end at midnight

Instagram is testing a way for creators to experiment with reels without committing to having them displayed on their profiles, giving the social network a possible edge over TikTok and…

Instagram tests ‘trial reels’ that don’t display to a creator’s followers

U.S. federal regulators have requested more information from Zoox, Amazon’s self-driving unit, as part of an investigation into rear-end crash risks posed by unexpected braking. The National Highway Traffic Safety…

Feds tell Zoox to send more info about autonomous vehicles suddenly braking

You thought the hottest rap battle of the summer was between Kendrick Lamar and Drake. You were wrong. It’s between Canva and an enterprise CIO. At its Canva Create event…

Canva’s rap battle is part of a long legacy of Silicon Valley cringe

Voice cloning startup ElevenLabs introduced a new tool for users to generate sound effects through prompts today after announcing the project back in February.

ElevenLabs debuts AI-powered tool to generate sound effects

We caught up with Antler founder and CEO Magnus Grimeland about the startup scene in Asia, the current tech startup trends in the region and investment approaches during the rise…

VC firm Antler’s CEO says Asia presents ‘biggest opportunity’ in the world for growth

Temu is to face Europe’s strictest rules after being designated as a “very large online platform” under the Digital Services Act (DSA).

Chinese e-commerce marketplace Temu faces stricter EU rules as a ‘very large online platform’

Meta has been banned from launching features on Facebook and Instagram that would have collected data on voters in Spain using the social networks ahead of next month’s European Elections.…

Spain bans Meta from launching election features on Facebook, Instagram over privacy fears

Stripe, the world’s most valuable fintech startup, said on Friday that it will temporarily move to an invite-only model for new account sign-ups in India, calling the move “a tough…

Stripe curbs its India ambitions over regulatory situation