AI Disruptors 60 Class of 2026 Unveiled Live at TechCrunch Disrupt

Venture firm Greenfield Partners revealed its AI Disruptors 60 Class of 2026 live on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt on Wednesday, October 14, naming 60 young AI startups it sees as the category’s next breakout companies. Greenfield says the group has raised nearly $6 billion combined and that most of the companies are less than three years old. The list also names 15 “Pioneers,” larger AI companies already operating at scale.

What happened at Disrupt?

The reveal took place on the Builders Stage during Day 2 of Disrupt 2026 at Moscone West in San Francisco, in a session TechCrunch’s programme listed as “Revealing AI Disruptors 60.” Greenfield managing partner Shay Grinfeld moderated a panel of founders:

• Parag Agrawal of Parallel Web Systems
• Anand Kannappan of Patronus AI
• Alberto Taiuti of Reactor

Patronus AI and Reactor both appear on the 2026 list, and Patronus is a returning name: its CTO, Rebecca Qian, was featured among the Class of 2025.

This is the second year the list has been tied to Disrupt. In 2025, Greenfield hosted a similar session at Disrupt in San Francisco, which TechCrunch’s brand studio covered in a sponsored recap. That year Grinfeld was joined by VAST Data founder and CEO Renen Hallak, Cartesia co-founder and CTO Brandon Yang, and Netic founder Melisa Tokmak. The Disruptors 60 site also features interviews with Class of 2025 companies including Exodigo, Assort Health, Patronus AI and Vega Security, showing how the firm tracks its picks after they are named.

Which startups made the Class of 2026?

Greenfield has not published the full 60-company list in one place on its homepage, but it has named a number of class members through company profiles and social posts. Startups publicly identified as part of the Class of 2026 include:

• Boltz, Conduct, Normal Computing, Foundry Robotics, Dash Bio and Pace, which have featured profiles on the Disruptors 60 site
• Accomplish, Judgment Labs, Patronus AI, Reactor and Ricursive Intelligence
• LiveKit, Code Metal, Fundamental, ResolveAI and Tenzai
• OLIGO Security, Wordsmith AI, Naboo, Dwelly, Westmag and Nox

Ricursive Intelligence also had its own Disrupt Stage slot on Day 2, where co-founders Anna Goldie and Azalia Mirhoseini discussed AI systems that design their own chips.

Who are the 2026 Pioneers?

Alongside the 60 emerging companies, Greenfield names 15 Pioneers, AI companies it considers already leading at scale. The 2026 Pioneers are:

Anduril, Figure, Etched, Fireworks AI, OpenEvidence, Applied Intuition, Cyera, Saronic, Hadrian, fal, Legora, EliseAI, Chai Discovery, Periodic Labs and Surge AI.

Several have raised very large rounds this year. Fal, for example, recently raised $1.3 billion at a $16 billion valuation.

Who is Greenfield Partners?

Greenfield describes itself as a global early growth investor with more than $3 billion in assets under management. It was also a platinum partner of Disrupt 2026. The firm’s tagline for the project is blunt: “Sixty companies. The only list that matters in AI.”

Why it matters

Lists like the Disruptors 60 are partly marketing for the firm that compiles them, but they also act as a snapshot of where investors think AI value is shifting. The publicly named members of the 2026 class include companies working on AI security and evaluation, robotics and AI-designed chips, a sign that investors are looking beyond general-purpose chatbots.

The Pioneers list shows how quickly AI companies can move from emerging to established, and it includes several businesses that now command multibillion-dollar valuations.

For founders, being named can help with fundraising and hiring, especially when announced in front of the investor-heavy Disrupt audience.

What happens next

Greenfield says the Disruptors 60 will return in fall 2027. For more from the event, read our coverage of the Disrupt 2026 Startup Battlefield Top 20.