Top Takeaways from the TechCrunch Disrupt Conference

Vyrill had the excellent opportunity to attend the Techcrunch Disrupt conference at Moscone Center in San Francisco. 

Disrupt is the leading startup ecosystem flagship event, and it was held in-person after a COVID hiatus of three years. 

Vyrill was selected among thousands of startups as one of the top Battlefield 200 startups.

Our booth in the Expo hall saw a flurry of activity over the three days. There was considerable interest in knowing more about how we are applying AI to video analytics through our API infrastructure. We gave several hundred demos to curious visitors - investors, potential customers, and employees - over three days of the conference.

There were several exciting startups across different categories like Healthtech, Cleantech, and Enterprise SaaS. They brought a novel approach to doing old things in new ways.

• Theneo https://www.theneo.io/, is bringing a fresh way to generate API documentation (they are YC backed)
• Typed https://typed.do/ offers a power user experience to Google docs and is aiming to do away with the folders.
• Minerva https://www.minervalithium.com/, the winner of the Battlefield competition, is a cleantech startup that has developed a novel lithium extraction technology with use cases in battery production at scale and water purification.

Of note was the presence of startups and visitors from around the globe. We had great conversations with startups and investors from South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Belgium, and India, just to name a few!

VCs offered great insights on fundraising and startup challenges at various growth stages. The speakers included notable names like Chris Dixon, Sheel Mohnot, Jomayra Herrera, Annie Case, Caryn Marooney, Niko Bonatsos, and other luminaries from the field whose sessions were a treat to attend.

For Vyrill, attending Disrupt was a valuable experience as we were able to talk to customers, potential partners and quite a few investors. Our biggest takeaway was that while some level of remote collaboration is here to stay, nothing compares with the energy and brainstorming that happens when people meet in-person.

As we are looking to expand our team and raise our Series A next year, this was a great event to further bolster our presence in the startup ecosystem.

We are deeply thankful to Michael Shick https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-schick-a84b13195/, and the Techcrunch team, whose tireless efforts and ever-present smiles made Disrupt a delightful experience for us.

Thanks to Stripe and Perkins Coie for the unforgettable after-event gatherings.

About the Author

Ajay Bam is the CEO and Co-founder at Vyrill, a first-of-its-kind video intelligence company launched in 2017 through UC Berkeley’s Skydeck Incubator program. Vyrill helps brands and shoppers find the “moments that matter” inside videos. Its AI-powered “In-Video’' search technology analyzes & shares insights hidden within videos to improve personalization, SEO, and conversion. Before Vyrill, Ajay launched Boston-based, mobile shopping app company Modiv Media. He is a proven and accomplished product management professional, entrepreneurial thinker, and innovator with more than 13 years of experience leading startups and world-class brands.

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