Hardshell has been selected for TechCrunch's 2026 Startup Battlefield 200, announced August 20. TechCrunch screens thousands of applications from every industry and geography to curate the list, and Hardshell was selected in the cybersecurity category. The company will exhibit at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, October 13-15 at Moscone West in San Francisco.
The Startup Battlefield 200 is TechCrunch's flagship program for early-stage companies. All 200 companies exhibit across the three days of Disrupt, pitch on the Pitch Showcase Stage, and compete for a spot in the Battlefield Top 20, which pitches live on the main stage for $100,000 in equity-free prize money and the Disrupt Cup. Battlefield alumni include Dropbox, Cloudflare, and Discord, with more than $32 billion raised and 250 exits across program alumni.
At Disrupt, the team will demo Hardshell's platform, which scans sensitive datasets for poisoning and leakage risks, scores them, and hardens them for safe use in enterprise AI systems, before that data is used for training, fine-tuning, or RAG. The company works with mid-market firms putting enterprise AI to work on sensitive data.
Hardshell will be in the Startup Battlefield 200 expo hall all three days of Disrupt. If you're planning to be there, stop by the table or reach out at info@hardshell.ai to set up time with the team.