All your M&A questions will be answered at Disrupt 2026

This year has been a whirlwind, and so are all our plans for TechCrunch Disrupt 2026. We have an exciting new panel for founders needing mergers and acquisitions advice…but first, we have a limited time ticket offer to share.

Disrupt will be back at Moscone West in San Francisco from October 13th to 15th, and for a limited time, attendees can also bring a colleague, co-founder, investor, or teammate for a small fee. Buy one Disrupt 2026 pass here and get 50% off a second pass of the same ticket type in a limited time offer until May 8th at 11:59 PM PT.

To see the type of programming that will keep you occupied during three days of Disrupt, take a look at the latest panels coming to the Builders Stage.

Hear how M&A is becoming an early-stage strategy on Disrupt

If you’ve been following our recent coverage, you know that takeovers and takeovers are still all the rage, especially in the AI ​​scene. It’s been a busy year, whether it’s OpenAI acquiring Hero, Anthropic acquiring Vercept, Google taking over Hume AI’s team, or Databricks bringing in two startups just for its security products.

And being acquired doesn’t mean the long road ends for the founders. It could be part of their early stage journey. And with these acquisitions and many others in mind, we’ve assembled a panel of experts to help give founders what they need to know about all the M&A options at hand.

Their perspective provides you with strategies for creating options for potential sales, ways to make your startup more attractive to buyers, and the realities of going through the acquisition process. Learn more about industry leaders as background for our panel discussion.

Aklil Ibssa, Head of Corporate Development and M&A, Coinbase

Acrylic Ibsa brings a buy-side perspective from one of the largest companies in the crypto industry, leading the company’s acquisition strategy and execution and helping Coinbase identify where to acquire, invest, partner, and build. He oversaw over 14 acquisitions and nearly 50 early- and late-stage investments, and as one of the first hires on Coinbase’s corporate development team, he contributed to what has become the most active M&A program in the crypto space, completing over 40 total acquisitions.

Most importantly for the founder, he has seen firsthand how strategic buyers evaluate young companies in terms of technology, talent, licensing, product development speed, and more. And he’ll be able to talk about acquisitions including Deribit, Liquifi, and Echo, as well as high-profile investments in startups like Kalshi.

Lindsay Mignano, Founder of Mignano Law Group

Lindsey Mignano brings legal and structural expertise that determines whether early-stage M&A transactions actually make it to the finish line. Founder of Mignano Law Group, she represents emerging technology companies, small businesses, venture-backed startups, and venture companies as outside general counsel. Her practice ranges from SAFE notes, price rounds, and bridge financing to buy-side and sell-side acquisitions, acquisitions, and just about anything else you can think of.

This gives her the unique ability to educate founders without having insight on how they can start preparing for M&A early. Many of her clients have been seeded through Series B companies, including enterprise SaaS, PaaS, and AI startups, exactly the types of companies currently facing strategic interest, and she will be able to anchor the conversation in the realities of capitalization, contracts, asset sales, and the work required to bring about acquisitions.

Karl Alomar, Managing Partner, M13

Now it’s time for investors and management to join the conversation. As Managing Partner of M13, Karl Alomar helps founders of seed and Series A software across infrastructure, fintech, developer productivity, and other categories bearing the brunt of the AI ​​revolution. He knows the earliest strategic decisions founders make, including when to raise, when to partner, when to accelerate growth, and when an acquisition path provides the best outcome for the company, team, and investors.

As COO of DigitalOcean, Alomar helped build the cloud infrastructure company from its first product to an ARR of approximately $250 million and ultimately a NYSE IPO with a valuation of up to approximately $15 billion. But as a founder, he has also participated in acquisition cycles. China Export Finance grew to approximately $140 million in revenue before being acquired in 2010, and Clearview Networks was acquired in 2000. This combination gave Karl a nuanced perspective on the core questions faced by founders in the audience: when should we continue building with our team and when is the right path to move forward with M&A?

Get your second pass for 50% off before May 8th

Please remember. Register for Disrupt 2026 by May 8th at 11:59 PM Pacific Time and save up to $410 on a pass with that offer, and get 50% off a second pass in the same ticket type. All the insights Disrupt provides are best shared with partners and colleagues. Don’t miss this opportunity.