The 9 top cybersecurity startups from Disrupt Startup Battlefield

Every year, TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield pitch contest draws thousands of applicants. We whittle those applications down to the top 200 contenders, and of them, the top 20 compete on the big stage to become the winner, taking home the Startup Battlefield Cup and a cash prize of $100,000. But the remaining 180 startups all blew us away as well in their respective categories and compete in their own pitch competition. Here is the full list of the cybersecurity Startup Battlefield 200 selectees, along with a note on why they landed in the competition. AIM Intelligence What it does: AIM offers enterprise cybersecurity products that both protect against new AI-enabled attacks and use AI in that protection. Why it’s noteworthy: AIM uses AI to conduct penetration tests of AI-optimized attacks and to protect corporate AI systems with customized guardrails, and it offers an AI safety planning tool. Corgea What it does: Corgea is an AI-driven enterprise security product that can scan code for flaws as well as find broken code intended to implement security measures such as user authentication. Why it’s noteworthy: The product allows the creation of AI agents that can secure code and works with, it says, any popular language and their libraries. CyDeploy What it does: CyDeploy offers a security product that automates asset discovery and mapping of all the apps and devices on a network. Techcrunch event San Francisco | October 13-15, 2026 Why it’s noteworthy: Once the assets are mapped, the product creates digital twins to sandbox testing and allows security orgs to use AI to automate other security processes as well. Cyntegra What it does: Cyntegra offers a hardware-plus-software solution that prevents ransomware attacks. Why it’s noteworthy: By locking away a secure backup of the system, ransomware doesn’t win. It can restore the operating system, apps, data, and credentials in the minutes after an attack. HACKERverse What it does: HACKERverse’s product deploys autonomous AI agents to implement known hacker attacks against a company’s defenses in “isolated battlefield.” Why it’s noteworthy: The tool tests and verifies that vendor security tools actually work as advertised. Mill Pond Research What it does: Mill Pond detects and secures unmanaged AI. Why it’s noteworthy: As employees adopt AI to assist them in their jobs, this tool can detect AI tools that are accessing sensitive data or otherwise creating potential security issues in the organization. Polygraf AI What it does: Polygraf AI offers small language models tuned for cybersecurity purposes. Why it’s noteworthy: Enterprises use the Polygraf models to enforce compliance, protect data, detect unauthorized AI usage, and spot deepfakes, among other examples. TruSources What it does: TruSources can detect AI deepfakes, be they audio, video, images. Why it’s noteworthy: This tech can work in real time for areas like identity authentication, age verification, and identity fraud prevention. ZEST Security What it does: AI-powered enterprise security platform that helps infosec teams detect and solve cloud security issues. Why it’s noteworthy: Zest helps teams speedily keep up with and mitigate known but unpatched security vulnerabilities and unifies vulnerability management across clouds and apps.