And the winner of Startup Battlefield at Disrupt 2026 is: Intero Biosystems
Last day to save up to $200 to TechCrunch Founder Summit on Oct. 16.
Register now. Disrupt doors open Oct. 13. Get your pass and bring someone with you at 50% off. REGISTER NOW. For three days this week in San Francisco, 20 eager startups participated in the Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026. The top 20 were chosen to represent the best of the Startup Battlefield 200, and they competed for a chance to take home the Startup Battlefield Cup and $100,000. With that intense pitching now complete, we have a winner. These startups were handpicked to compete in Startup Battlefield, and all of them presented a live demo in front of the VCs and tech leaders who judged the competition. After hours of deliberations, TechCrunch editors pored over the judges’ notes and narrowed the list down to five finalists: Apate, Flox Intelligence, Intero Biosystems, Industrial Next, and Satlyt. The final five made their way to the finale to demo in front of our final panel of judges: Alexa von Tobel of Inspired Capital, Chi-Hua Chien of Goodwater Capital, Dayna Grayson of Construct Capital, Karl Alomar of M13, and Stacy Brown-Philpot of Cherryrock Capital. We’re now ready to announce that the winner of TechCrunch Startup Battlefield 2026 is: Intero Biosystems is a Denver-based startup founded by Charlie Childs and Madeline Eiken that spun out of the University of Michigan. It’s developing 1mm human intestinal “organoids,” lab-grown tissue that mimics the gut, offering another way to study how drugs and other compounds might affect the human body before they are tested in people. The startup sells its flagship product, GastroScreen, to pharmaceutical, biotech, food, and chemical companies for testing drugs and other compounds. Read more about Intero Biosystems in our separate post here.
