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.
Key points
- Intero Biosystems won the Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, taking home the Startup Battlefield Cup and $100,000.
- The Denver-based startup, founded by Charlie Childs and Madeline Eiken, spun out of the University of Michigan.
- Intero develops 1 mm human intestinal organoids and sells its GastroScreen product to pharmaceutical, biotech, food, and chemical companies.
TechCrunch has announced that Intero Biosystems is the winner of the Startup Battlefield at Disrupt 2026. The competition took place this week in San Francisco, where 20 startups selected from the Startup Battlefield 200 pitched for the Startup Battlefield Cup and $100,000.
The final five finalists were Apate, Flox Intelligence, Intero Biosystems, Industrial Next, and Satlyt. They presented live demos to a 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.
About Intero Biosystems
Intero Biosystems is a Denver-based startup founded by Charlie Childs and Madeline Eiken that spun out of the University of Michigan. It is developing 1 mm human intestinal organoids, lab-grown tissue that mimics the gut, to study how drugs and other compounds 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.
We're now ready to announce that the winner of TechCrunch Startup Battlefield 2026 is:
— TechCrunch
Other finalist Apate
Apate is an Australian startup founded by Dali Kaafar, who came up with the idea while doing research at Macquarie University in Sydney. It deploys thousands of AI agents that pose as innocent victims, answering scam calls, responding to shady messages and emails, following phishing links, and joining social media groups to bait fraudsters.
Customers receive access to Apate's fleet of agents and an insights portal that provides intelligence and analytics on scams targeting their end users or employees, brands, products, and more.
