Technology
The Disrupt 2025 Builders Stage agenda now live and taking shape

Startups don’t build themselves. The Builders Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, taking place October 27–29 at San Francisco’s Moscone West, is where investors, operators, and founders come to talk tactics — the nitty-gritty of getting something off the ground and making it work. This year, we’re bringing some of the sharpest minds in the game to the stage, including legendary investor Elad Gil, former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, and Flexport founder Ryan Petersen. If you’re looking for real-world insights from people who’ve actually built and backed category-defining companies, this is where it happens.
Whether you’re wrestling with your first term sheet, building a GTM engine that actually converts, or wondering if AI should be your next hire, the Builders Stage has answers. Expect candid conversations, fresh strategies, and no-fluff advice from the folks who’ve been through the fire — plus audience Q&A during every session, so you can get your toughest questions answered, live.
Scale smarter with actionable insights from the leaders sitting front and center on the Builders Stage. Register now and save up to $675 on your ticket.
A first look at the Builders Stage agenda
See what’s locked in so far below and stay tuned. The Disrupt 2025 agenda is only getting bigger, with more top names and bold conversations on the way.
Raising Smart
A Conversation with Investor Extraordinaire Elad Gil
Before most of the world had experienced ChatGPT, Elad Gil had already written seed checks to startups like Perplexity, Character.AI, and Harvey. That’s on top of early bets on companies like Airbnb, Airtable, Anduril, Brex, Checkr, Coinbase, Deel, Figma, Flexport, GitLab, Gusto, Instacart, Notion, Opendoor, Pinterest, Rippling, Square, Stripe… you get the idea.
Gil, who has also founded multiple companies like Mixerlabs (bought by Twitter) and Color Health, always seems to know what’s next. And he’s already working on the next things coming for AI and investing.
Building What’s Next with the Minds Behind Twitter and Meta
Adam Bain and Dick Costolo, co-founders and managing partners, and David Fischer, partner, at 01 Advisors
Join these three powerhouse investors from 01 Advisors for an insider fireside chat on what it really takes to build, scale, and fund early-stage startups today. From product to growth to fundraising, you’ll get candid advice and fresh perspectives from industry veterans shaping the next wave of tech success.
Seed Money Secrets Every Founder Should Know
Gabby Cazeau, partner, Harlem Capital, Marlon Nichols, co-Founder and managing general partner, MaC Venture Capital, and Maria Palma, partner, Freestyle Capital
Raising your first round is tough, but far from impossible. This panel brings together experienced investors to break down what it really takes to close a seed round. From crafting the right pitch to ensuring you are greenlighting the right partners, get actionable advice to turn investor interest into capital.
How to Raise a Series A in 2026
Sangeen Zeb, general partner, GV, and more speakers to be announced
In this unfiltered panel, top VCs reveal what really gets them to offer a term sheet with a healthy valuation — from metrics that matter to the pitch mistakes that kill deals. Learn how to position your company for its first priced, institutional investment.
What VCs Really Want to Hear in Your Pitch
Medha Agarwal, general partner, defy.vc, Jyoti Bansal, CEO and co-founder, Harness, and Jennifer Neundorfer, general partner, January Ventures
Investors hear hundreds of pitches, but only a few stand out. Hear directly from VCs on what they love, what makes them cringe, and the subtle signals founders often miss. This panel reveals insider tips to help you craft a pitch that grabs attention, builds trust, and wins the right checks.
Rethinking Startup Capital Without VCs
Erik Allebest, co-founder and CEO, Chess.com, Kay Makishi, Lupoff/Stevens Family Office, and Gale Wilkinson, managing partner, VITALIZE Venture Capital
VCs aren’t the only game in town. Join us as we explore alternative fundraising paths with an angel investor, a family office vice president, and a founder who bootstrapped to success. Learn how to tap into capital that aligns with your vision, keeps you in control, and gets you to the next stage on your terms.
Preparing Now for Your Later Stage Raise
Lila Preston, head of growth equity, Generation Investment Management, Andrea Thomaz, CEO and co-founder, Diligent Robotics, and Zeya Yang, partner, IVP
Raising later-stage rounds takes more than luck — it’s about strategy from day one. Join these three exceptional VCs as they share how to build metrics, storytelling, and relationships that position your startup for future funding success. Learn the key moves that set you up to close bigger rounds with confidence.
Where VCs Are Placing Their Bets in 2026
Nina Achadjian, partner, Index Ventures, Jerry Chen, general partner, Greylock, and Viviana Faga, general partner, Felicis
Curious where the smart money is heading next? This panel brings together top VCs to share their 2026 investment priorities, emerging sectors, and what innovations are catching their eye. Early-stage founders, this one is for you! Get a rare glimpse into the trends and technologies that could shape your business in the year ahead.
Scaling Smart
Building in a Time of Uncertainty
Ryan Petersen, founder and CEO, Flexport
Uncertainty is the new normal, but it’s also an opportunity. In this fireside chat, Ryan Petersen, CEO of global logistics unicorn Flexport, shares his hard-won insights. With $2.3B raised, Flexport’s shipping technology intersects international business and policy, giving Petersen almost prescient economic insights. He’s been vocal about everything from tariff policy to AI. He’s also experienced personal volatility, famously leaving his CEO role and then returning less than a year later. Founders, take notes: this is how you build when the rules keep changing.
How to Nail Product Market Fit
Rajat Bhageria, founder and CEO, Chef Robotics, Ann Bordetsky, partner, NEA, and Murali Joshi, partner, ICONIQ
Building a product is hard. Building one that customers are chomping at the bit to get, that’s priced right, and delivers on its promises is even harder, and it’s always messy. But once you hit the holy grail of product-market fit, your startup is on a fast track to growth, funding, and traction. Hear from a founder who’s lived it and two investors who’ve helped many others get there. This panel breaks down how to test smarter and iterate with intention so you can stop guessing and start growing.
How Much Salary and Equity Should You Really Offer Early Employees?
Randi Jakubowitz, head of operations and talent, 645 Ventures, Rebecca Lee Whiting, fractional general counsel for early-stage startups, Epigram Legal P.C., and Yin Wu, CEO and founder, Pulley
Early hires shape your startup’s future, but only if you can attract and keep them. This panel dives into building equity and benefits packages that compete with big tech without breaking your burn rate. Hear real-world strategies to align incentives, boost retention, and build a team that scales.
With Vibe Coding, Do Early Stage Startups Still Need to Hire 10x Engineers?
David Cramer, co-founder and CPO, Sentry, Lauri Moore, partner, Bessemer Venture Partners, and a speaker to be announced
Vibe coding products have completely changed the speed, cost, and technical skill needed to build products, from prototypes to shipping. This is especially true for early stage startups. Some makers of these products have even declared that no one needs to learn to code anymore. If so, that means startups don’t need to fill their early rosters with the famed 10x coders. But how much of that is hype and how much is reality? Our panelists will dive into how the developer tool world is changing and what comes next.
Should You Hire AI as Early Employees?
Caleb Peffer, co-founder and CEO, Firecrawl, and more speakers to be announced
Most startups today are using AI in some capacities: vibe coding prototypes or new features, deep research via their favorite chat before sales calls. Many are also building AI products, or at least including AI options and features. So, should you embed AI at the root operations of your businesses, like hiring AI agents instead of humans for sales? For customer support? To automate your billing? Learn how to pick the right use cases, build smarter workflows, and get the biggest impact with limited resources.
Do Startups Still Need Silicon Valley?
Anh-Tho Chuong, CEO and co-founder, Lago, Heather Doshay, partner, head of talent, SignalFire, and David Hall, managing partner, rise of the rest seed fund, Revolution
While Silicon Valley is still the startup capital, how important is access to it anymore? This panel debates whether founders must plant roots in the Valley to succeed or if opportunity is so strong elsewhere that they don’t need it. Hear perspectives from investors and founders redefining what it means to build, scale, and fund a company in today’s decentralized tech world.
Building a GTM Engine that Actually Works
Max Altschuler, founder and general partner, GTMfund, and more speakers to be announced
A killer product needs a killer go-to-market strategy. This panel breaks down how early-stage startups can build a GTM function that drives growth, wins customers, and scales efficiently. Hear from founders and GTM experts on hiring, messaging, sales tactics, and the key metrics that prove your approach is working.
Want to see more?
Not only will you gain invaluable insights from these tech giants live at Disrupt 2025 alongside 10,000+ startup, tech, and VC leaders this October, but you can also save up to $675 on your pass today. Register here to lock in your savings.
Technology
Pintarnya raises $16.7M to power jobs and financial services in Indonesia

Pintarnya, an Indonesian employment platform that goes beyond job matching by offering financial services along with full-time and side-gig opportunities, said it has raised a $16.7 million Series A round.
The funding was led by Square Peg with participation from existing investors Vertex Venture Southeast Asia & India and East Ventures.
Ghirish Pokardas, Nelly Nurmalasari, and Henry Hendrawan founded Pintarnya in 2022 to tackle two of the biggest challenges Indonesians face daily: earning enough and borrowing responsibly.
“Traditionally, mass workers in Indonesia find jobs offline through job fairs or word of mouth, with employers buried in paper applications and candidates rarely hearing back. For borrowing, their options are often limited to family/friend or predatory lenders with harsh collection practices,” Henry Hendrawan, co-founder of Pintarnya, told TechCrunch. “We digitize job matching with AI to make hiring faster and we provide workers with safer, healthier lending options — designed around what they can reasonably afford, rather than pushing them deeper into debt.”
Around 59% of Indonesia’s 150 million workforce is employed in the informal sector, highlighting the difficulties these workers encounter in accessing formal financial services because they lack verifiable income and official employment documentation.
Pintarnya tackles this challenge by partnering with asset-backed lenders to offer secured loans, using collateral such as gold, electronics, or vehicles, Hendrawan added.
Since its seed funding in 2022, the platform currently serves over 10 million job seeker users and 40,000 employers nationwide. Its revenue has increased almost fivefold year-over-year and expects to reach break-even by the end of the year, Hendrawn noted. Pintarnya primarily serves users aged 21 to 40, most of whom have a high school education or a diploma below university level. The startup aims to focus on this underserved segment, given the large population of blue-collar and informal workers in Indonesia.
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“Through the journey of building employment services, we discovered that our users needed more than just jobs — they needed access to financial services that traditional banks couldn’t provide,” said Hendrawan. “We digitize job matching with AI to make hiring faster and we provide workers with safer, healthier lending options — designed around what they can reasonably afford, rather than pushing them deeper into debt.”

While Indonesia already has job platforms like JobStreet, Kalibrr, and Glints, these primarily cater to white-collar roles, which represent only a small portion of the workforce, according to Hendrawan. Pintarnya’s platform is designed specifically for blue-collar workers, offering tailored experiences such as quick-apply options for walk-in interviews, affordable e-learning on relevant skills, in-app opportunities for supplemental income, and seamless connections to financial services like loans.
The same trend is evident in Indonesia’s fintech sector, which similarly caters to white-collar or upper-middle-class consumers. Conventional credit scoring models for loans, which rely on steady monthly income and bank account activity, often leave blue-collar workers overlooked by existing fintech providers, Hendrawan explained.
When asked about which fintech services are most in demand, Hendrawan mentioned, “Given their employment status, lending is the most in-demand financial service for Pintarnya’s users today. We are planning to ‘graduate’ them to micro-savings and investments down the road through innovative products with our partners.”
The new funding will enable Pintarnya to strengthen its platform technology and broaden its financial service offerings through strategic partnerships. With most Indonesian workers employed in blue-collar and informal sectors, the co-founders see substantial growth opportunities in the local market. Leveraging their extensive experience in managing businesses across Southeast Asia, they are also open to exploring regional expansion when the timing is right.
“Our vision is for Pintarnya to be the everyday companion that empowers Indonesians to not only make ends meet today, but also plan, grow, and upgrade their lives tomorrow … In five years, we see Pintarnya as the go-to super app for Indonesia’s workers, not just for earning income, but as a trusted partner throughout their life journey,” Hendrawan said. “We want to be the first stop when someone is looking for work, a place that helps them upgrade their skills, and a reliable guide as they make financial decisions.”
Technology
OpenAI warns against SPVs and other ‘unauthorized’ investments

In a new blog post, OpenAI warns against “unauthorized opportunities to gain exposure to OpenAI through a variety of means,” including special purpose vehicles, known as SPVs.
“We urge you to be careful if you are contacted by a firm that purports to have access to OpenAI, including through the sale of an SPV interest with exposure to OpenAI equity,” the company writes. The blog post acknowledges that “not every offer of OpenAI equity […] is problematic” but says firms may be “attempting to circumvent our transfer restrictions.”
“If so, the sale will not be recognized and carry no economic value to you,” OpenAI says.
Investors have increasingly used SPVs (which pool money for one-off investments) as a way to buy into hot AI startups, prompting other VCs to criticize them as a vehicle for “tourist chumps.”
Business Insider reports that OpenAI isn’t the only major AI company looking to crack down on SPVs, with Anthropic reportedly telling Menlo Ventures it must use its own capital, not an SPV, to invest in an upcoming round.
Technology
Meta partners with Midjourney on AI image and video models

Meta is partnering with Midjourney to license the startup’s AI image and video generation technology, Meta Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang announced Friday in a post on Threads. Wang says Meta’s research teams will collaborate with Midjourney to bring its technology into future AI models and products.
“To ensure Meta is able to deliver the best possible products for people it will require taking an all-of-the-above approach,” Wang said. “This means world-class talent, ambitious compute roadmap, and working with the best players across the industry.”
The Midjourney partnership could help Meta develop products that compete with industry-leading AI image and video models, such as OpenAI’s Sora, Black Forest Lab’s Flux, and Google’s Veo. Last year, Meta rolled out its own AI image generation tool, Imagine, into several of its products, including Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. Meta also has an AI video generation tool, Movie Gen, that allows users to create videos from prompts.
The licensing agreement with Midjourney marks Meta’s latest deal to get ahead in the AI race. Earlier this year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg went on a hiring spree for AI talent, offering some researchers compensation packages worth upwards of $100 million. The social media giant also invested $14 billion in Scale AI, and acquired the AI voice startup Play AI.
Meta has held talks with several other leading AI labs about other acquisitions, and Zuckerberg even spoke with Elon Musk about joining his $97 billion takeover bid of OpenAI (Meta ultimately did not join the offer, and OpenAI denied Musk’s bid).
While the terms of Meta’s deal with Midjourney remain unknown, the startup’s CEO, David Holz, said in a post on X that his company remains independent with no investors; Midjourney is one of the few leading AI model developers that has never taken on outside funding. At one point, Meta talked with Midjourney about acquiring the startup, according to Upstarts Media.
Midjourney was founded in 2022 and quickly became a leader in the AI image generation space for its realistic, unique style. By 2023, the startup was reportedly on pace to generate $200 million in revenue. The startup sells subscriptions starting at $10 per month. It offers pricier tiers, which offer more AI image generations, that cost as much as $120 per month. In June, the startup released its first AI video model, V1.
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Meta’s partnership with Midjourney comes just two months after the startup was sued by Disney and Universal, alleging that it trained AI image models on copyrighted works. Several AI model developers — including Meta — face similar allegations from copyright holders, however, recent court cases pertaining to AI training data have sided with tech companies.
Got a sensitive tip or confidential documents? We’re reporting on the inner workings of the AI industry — from the companies shaping its future to the people impacted by their decisions. Reach out to Rebecca Bellan at [email protected] and Maxwell Zeff at [email protected]. For secure communication, you can contact us via Signal at @rebeccabellan.491 and @mzeff.88.
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