Conference Presentation, Panel, Fireside Chat
Startup Competition Final: RAISE the STAKES | RAISE Summit 2026
RAISE SummitGleb Budman, Cyrille Saint Olive, Luke Pappas, Shahab Shafieehanjani, Cyril, Rodrigo, Kinga Matua, Charles
- Backblaze anticipates an incredible future for the three selected startups and over 1,000 applicants, driven by AI enabling faster and more successful outcomes.
- Google for Startups plans to support founders globally from early to late stages, offering access to Google DeepMind, cloud credit programs, and ad ecosystem connections.
- NEA intends to invest across the full lifecycle from pre-seed and seed stages through to public listing and long-term stability.
- Neural Trust aims to assist clients in maintaining alignment with the EU AI Act and GDPR while scaling to support large enterprises operating hundreds of agents.
- Curigen plans to establish an in-house lab to generate data at scale, targeting solid tissues for oncology and immuno-oncology, and intends to build the largest immune profiling database.
- Curigen expects to launch two drug development programs using seed investment, discover novel drug targets via its own data, and scale pilot projects into strategic licensing partnerships.
- Strawberry plans to invent new internet protocols, develop mobile apps and cloud infrastructure, train and host its own models, and race a funding round closer to year-end to provide a safe, agentic web.
- The top 10 companies from the 2026 competition are projected to have raised a total valuation of $160 million, with at least one founder expected to become a unicorn within the next few years.
- The 2027 Raise Summit agenda is expected to include panels featuring startup winners, including at least one from the Raise the Stakes competition, while organizers may transition the event format to a scale-up competition.
- The industry is expected to experience rapid movement, significant adoption, and substantial change, with potential shifts from startup competition models to scale-up focus.