Three days, thousands of people, and more meaningful conversations than we could ever count.
That’s Startup Grind Conference. Not the stages, not the lights. The moments in between. The handshake that turns into a partnership. The intro that changes everything. Friends you didn’t know you needed until you found them here.
🏆 Startup of the Year: Sentry AI. Relentless, bold, and exactly the kind of company this stage was built for.
🌟 Directors of the Year. You show up every month, in every city, making sure no founder ever has to build alone. This community exists because of you.
To our 200+ speakers, thank you for being generous with your knowledge, your stories, and your time. You set the tone for everything.
To our sponsors, none of this happens without you. Your belief in what we’re building here means more than you know.
And to this community, the founders, the investors, the dreamers, the builders, you are the reason any of this works.
Without you, there is no Startup Grind.
See you next year. 🫶
📷 @dinosoldin
Ashton Kutcher on the mainstage, bringing exactly the kind of perspective founders came to hear.
Sharp, thoughtful, and grounded in what this ecosystem does best: helping people turn ideas into something real.
That was the spirit of the 2026 Startup Grind Conference, and in 2027, we’re going even bigger.
Learn more at the link in bio.
Founder. Operator. Very good boy.
If you missed the Startup Grind Conference, you missed the founder of PawPilot AI raising $10M in biscuits.
Due diligence includes belly rubs. 🤣
🚀 Next year marks 15 years of the Startup Grind Conference, and you’re invited!
Register your early interest, link in bio.
Every chapter has a heartbeat. And behind it, a person who shows up.
Month after month, city after city, opening the door so no founder ever has to walk this path alone. With over 600 chapters around the world, Startup Grind is only as strong as the people leading them.
This year's Directors of the Year. 🌟
🌟 Alexandra Poelstra
🌟 Carlos Zarate
🌟 David Stengle
🌟 Rajiv Nathan
🌟 Corey Hart
🌟 Daniel Gomez
🌟 Michael Thaney
🌟 James Gee
🌟 Sid Khaitan
🌟 Reuben Levinsohn
🌟 Emma Loedel
🌟 Jason Kraus
Thank you for everything you give to this community. 🫶
📷 @dinosoldin
Thousands of startups applied to be part of the Startup Grind Conference 2026.
150 of the world’s most promising startups earned their spot on the VC Pitch Stage, pitching live in front of investors. Across the conference, more than 800 pre-scheduled meetings took place between founders and investors inside the Investor Lounge.
From an exceptionally strong field, one company stood out.
🏆 Congratulations to Sentry AI, our 2026 Startup of the Year.
Sentry AI is building enterprise-grade autonomous defense: agentic AI that detects, flags, and neutralizes threats in real time.
During the conference, they met with 40 investors, with many now in active conversations about joining their round.
This is exactly what Startup Grind is for: to help great founders get in the room, build meaningful relationships, and accelerate what comes next.
The future is being built now.
📷 @dinosoldin@dinosoldinphoto
Eoghan McCabe (@eoghanmccabe ) hates the “I have a great team” speech as much as you do.
The CEO and founder of @intercom called it out on the Startup Grind mainstage, the false humility, the rehearsed modesty. But then he said something honest: he genuinely has people around him who are closer to the action, especially when it comes to AI, and they were the ones nudging him awake when the big shift started coming.
Eoghan was one of the standout voices of this conference, and this moment is a good example of why.
“Did you know stuffed animals can grow faster than the world’s most valuable AI companies?”
That’s how Quincy Fuller, 8, and Jackson Fuller, 10, opened their talk on the Startup Grind Conference mainstage.
They’re the co-CEOs of Stuffers. Three years ago their dad asked them to create a business idea, AI helped bring it to life, and they turned it into a real company, pitching to corporations, landing in Forbes and Fortune, and crossing $100k in sales in just one year.
Sons of @kobiefuller , who has been on the Divot podcast (@divotpod ), these two are proof that the next generation of founders is already here.
This is exactly the kind of stage moment that makes the Startup Grind Conference worth showing up for!
Day 2 had everything you want from a conference day.
James DuMoulin, Amjad Masad, Gabe Pereyra, Lin Qiao, Justin Kan, and so many others took the stage. Sharp sessions, honest conversations, and energy that never really slowed down.
And then the after party hit. The place was packed, founders had a great time with free drinks, food, and the kind of conversations that only happen when everyone finally relaxes.
It would not have felt the same without everyone who showed up.
Swipe through for a few favorite moments from Day 2.
📷 @dinosoldin@dinosoldinphoto
Justin Kan took the mainstage and got surprisingly personal.
Even after selling Twitch to Amazon for $970M, he wasn't a grateful person. A friend suggested gratitude journaling. He thought it sounded stupid. Tried it anyway for a month.He felt a lot better.
Only at Startup Grind do you get this kind of conversation on a mainstage.
Gabe Pereyra on the mainstage with an analogy that reframes the AI moment completely.
The most interesting startups of the internet era, Facebook, Uber, Airbnb, seemed unintuitive before the internet existed. A company like Harvey is kind of obvious in the same way now.
One of those moments from the Startup Grind Conference that makes you think differently about what’s being built today.
Amjad Masad on the mainstage with the kind of line that makes a room lean in:
from $2.5M MRR to $250M MRR in a year.
Big growth story.
An even bigger reminder that timing, talent, and staying in it matter.
One of those moments from the Startup Grind Conference that stays with you.
James Dumoulin on the mainstage with a simple truth about content:
if the first 3 seconds do not land, the rest usually does not matter.
Hook first.
Then retention.
A reminder from the Startup Grind Conference.
