October 16, 2026

The 2026 Startup Battlefield Top 20: From organs to orbit and everything in between: Twenty founders just earned their shot at Disrupt glory. They're headed to the main stage at TechCrunch Disrupt to compete for the $100,000 prize and the coveted Disrupt Cup. Read More

Apate sends AI agents undercover to get scammed so they can gather fraud intelligence: Most companies use AI agents to ship products faster or speed up workflows. Apate.ai sends them undercover to get scammed. Read More

Petra Power looks to modernize energy for data centers and defense vehicles: The startup says its fuel cells are super efficient and cut fuel costs during a time when the tech industry can’t get enough electricity. Read More

Altum Atlas combines longitudinal molecular data, automated genomic workflows and AI-powered noise reduction to improve analysis efficiency and reduce costs. Built to make ultra-sensitive, personalized cancer monitoring scalable in pharma, clinical research and healthcare. Altum is part of Santander X 100, the global community of Santander X.

Ricursive Intelligence is betting on AI-designed chips to help solve the compute crisis: The founders detailed how their startup is developing AI that can design chips, learn from each iteration, and improve subsequent designs, all with the goal of automating and accelerating the chip design process. Read More

And the winner of Startup Battlefield at Disrupt 2026 is: Intero Biosystems: Intero Biosystems beat out 199 other Startup Battlefield companies to take home the $100,000 grand prize at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026. Read More

Veritas expands its anti-counterfeit chip to jewelry, trophies, and fragrance bottles: Counterfeiters are getting better at replicating brands' marks and passing off dupes, known as "superfakes," as genuine items. A startup called Veritas wants to tackle the problem with its own chip that verifies goods. Read More

Ramp reaches $60B valuation as it pushes deeper into AI: The funding comes as Ramp's annualized revenue crosses $2B, and its customer count reaches 85,000. Read More

CedarDB wants one database to handle both transactions and analytics, as AI agents raise the stakes: Databases have traditionally been designed either for analytical data or for operational data. But database engine CedarDB supports both, and its approach has gained relevance with the rise of agentic AI. Read More

A message from North.cloud

North.cloud unifies spend intelligence and enables full automation across cloud, AI, and data providers. Finance and engineering can now understand, optimize, and automate infrastructure spend. Understand every dollar, manage AI usage, and forecast with confidence. We just raised a $60M Series B to help every team spend smarter. Start saving. 

Hiyd is a health tracker that attaches to the watch you already wear: Former Apple engineers figured out how to get a biometric sensor to attach to your watch without any magnets or adhesives. Read More