Meet the judges who will crown Australia’s next breakout startup
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- TechCrunch and Stripe are co-hosting Startup Battlefield at Stripe Tour Sydney on August 19, with eight Australian startups pitching live before investors, press, and the tech community; three will win prizes and one earns automatic entry to TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 in San Francisco (October 13–15).
- The three-judge panel pairs Jasmine Liew (Head of Startup & Investor Partnerships for APAC at Stripe), Brendan Hill (angel investor and venture partner at Ten13), and Jarron Aizen (founder and CEO of Hapana) — representing global fintech infrastructure, active check-writing capital, and founder experience in the Australian market.
- Prize money is paid in Stripe fee credits: $15,000 to first place, $5,000 to second, and $2,000 to third, with the grand prize winner also entering Startup Battlefield 200 at Disrupt 2026.
- Startup Battlefield's track record includes launching more than 1,700 companies globally — among them Dropbox, Cloudflare, Discord, and Trello — with alumni collectively raising $32 billion and producing 250+ exits.
- The previous Sydney winner, HealthMatch, has since reached a valuation above $25 million and signed up more than a million patients worldwide, anchoring the competition's pitch as a credible pipeline to breakout status.
- Isabelle Johannessen, director of Startup Battlefield, will host and MC the August 19 event, which is open to non-pitching attendees including investors and operators via registration.
Why it matters: The competition offers Australian early-stage startups a direct funnel into TechCrunch's global Battlefield ecosystem — past alumni raised $32 billion collectively — and the top prize doubles as a guaranteed slot at Disrupt 2026, making August 19 one of the most concentrated shot-to-scale moments on the Australian startup calendar this year.
