Full Benchmark Partnership Joins Disrupt 2026 Main Stage

What does one of Silicon Valley’s most successful venture companies think its founders are doing wrong? TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 brings together all five of Benchmark’s general partners on one stage to find out. Jack Altman, Peter Fenton, Chetan Puttagunta, Everett Randle, and Eric Vishlier come together for the Disrupt Stage Sessions “What We Believe Now.” This is the first time the entire current Benchmark partnership will be together at San Francisco’s Disrupt Stage.

Rather than another conversation about where venture capital has been, the focus is on where venture capital is going next: where the next generation of startups will come from, what assumptions founders should reconsider, and what opportunities partners believe are still hiding in plain sight. And 2026 is a particularly interesting year to ask them.

Benchmark has spent decades building its reputation around focused early-stage investing. This year, the company made its biggest change to its strategy, raising about $2 billion from a $750 million flagship fund and an initial $1.25 billion growth fund. The market has changed. The benchmarks have also changed accordingly. Now, we want to know what the company thinks will happen next.

Sit front and center for insights into tomorrow’s ventures at Disrupt. Register now and save up to $200 before the price increases on September 25th at 11:59pm PT. Group passes for 4 or more people receive an additional 30% discount.

Venture capital is abundant. Convictions are even harder to find.

AI has reshaped the venture market at breakneck speed. According to the OECD, AI companies accounted for 61% of global venture capital investment in 2025, accounting for $258.7 billion out of a total investment of $427.1 billion. But that funding is not evenly distributed. Deals valued at more than $100 million accounted for approximately 73% of total AI investments. That creates a strange environment for founders.

There is strong demand for technology companies, even as competition intensifies for a relatively small number of companies that investors believe can become category leaders. Will the next billion dollar company be another AI application, or is the application layer already overcrowded? Is the defense built into the model, infrastructure, proprietary data, or distribution? Are some of the best businesses being overlooked because everyone is chasing the same theme? And what actually makes a company investable when founders can build products faster than ever before?

There probably won’t be complete agreement on stage. That’s the point. Hear a complex discussion from five VC heavyweights on the Disrupt Stage. Register now and save up to $200 before price increases on September 25th.

5 Investors Joined the Disrupt Stage, Very Different Routes to Partnership

Benchmark’s partnerships bring together experience in founding companies, supporting enterprise software, investing in frontier technologies, and assisting companies with IPOs and acquisitions.

Jack Altman joined Benchmark this year after founding Lattice and later his own venture firm, Alt Capital. Before Altman joined Benchmark, Alt Capital had raised $425 million through early-stage investment activity. His approach gives the discussion a rare direct perspective from founders to investors.

Peter Fenton brings one of the longest track records in the venture industry. His investments span consumer and enterprise companies, including current AI investments such as Sierra, Digits, and Sema4.ai. He has served on the boards of seven successful IPOs including Twitter, Elastic, New Relic, Zendesk, and Yelp.

Chetan Puttagunta focuses on early-stage enterprise software and has helped companies such as MongoDB, MuleSoft, Elastic, Modern Treasury, Legora, and Stytch.

Everett Randle brings investment experience across a variety of stages and categories, including Anthropic, SpaceX, Ripling, Flock Safety, Gumloop, and Chainguard.

Eric Vishria also focuses on early-stage infrastructure and enterprise software, with investments in Amplitude, Confluent, Fireworks.ai, Cerebras Systems, and more. Prior to becoming an investor, he was a startup CEO and co-founded RockMelt prior to its acquisition by Yahoo.

Putting these perspectives together, the Benchmarks panel session “What We Believe Now” will not be about a single benchmark paper, but about how experienced investors disagree, update assumptions, and decide where confidence is needed.

Listen to this session live in October and save up to $200 when you register before the price increase on September 25th.

Opportunities hidden in plain sight can look like bad encounters.

Cerebras is a great example. Vishria recently told TechCrunch that he barely attended his first meeting with the AI ​​chip startup in 2016. The hardware was outside Benchmark’s comfort zone, and what Cerebras wanted to build seemed extremely difficult.

By the third slide, he changed his mind. Benchmark continued to co-lead the company’s $25 million Series A. Ten years later, Cerebras went public, with Benchmark holding a 9.5% stake in the IPO.

This story encapsulates something important about venture investing. The best opportunities don’t always emerge as consensus winners. In some cases, it may challenge investors’ existing theories. Sometimes technology is too fast. Sometimes the market clearly doesn’t exist yet. And knowing when to change your mind can be more valuable than being right the first time. Expect such ideas to surface in the disrupt stage.

Save up to $200 on passes when you register by September 25th. After that, the price will go up.

Founders should come to this Disrupt session prepared to disagree.

For founders, there could be no more useful session than hearing what Benchmark thinks entrepreneurs currently misunderstand. Not because benchmarks are automatically correct, but because understanding how sophisticated investors value markets, teams, and opportunities gives founders new ways to challenge their assumptions.

Investors can compare those frameworks with their own. LoB leaders can learn what changes venture companies believe are durable enough to shape the companies they work for, and where capital will flow next. For students, aspiring founders, and anyone just trying to understand where technology is headed, it’s a rare opportunity to hear five investors with very different experiences weighing in on an idea in the same room.

And those ideas matter beyond the venture world. Investment decisions ultimately come down to betting on which technologies, business models, and founders are likely to shape the next decade.

Register now and save up to $200 before the price increases on September 25th at 11:59pm PT.

There are bets on benchmarks. what is yours? Decided at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026

A lot can change in 12 months in the world of technology. AI functions work. A market will emerge. The category will disappear. Companies that seemed inevitable suddenly weren’t, and few people watched them rise. It is important to have a thesis. Knowing when to update is even more important.

Join Jack Altman, Peter Fenton, Chetan Puttagunta, Everett Randle, and Eric Vishlier on the Disrupt Stage to hear what Benchmark believes now and what might convince them to change their minds next.

Disrupt 2026 will be held at Moscone West in San Francisco from October 13th to 15th, bringing together over 10,000 founders, investors, operators, and innovators across six stages, roundtables, breakouts, a startup battlefield, an expo hall, and more.

The next great company may already be born. Find out where Silicon Valley’s most experienced investors are looking at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026. Register now and save up to $200 before prices go up on September 25th at 11:59pm PT. Save an additional 30% when you register as a group of 4 or more.