The year continues to move quickly, and so does everything we plan TechCrunch disabled 2026! We have an exciting new team for founders who need MandA advice… but first, we have a limited-time ticket offer to participate.
Disrupt will once again be held at Moscone West in San Francisco from October 13-15, and for a limited time, attendees can also bring a colleague, co-founder, investor, or teammate for a lower cost! You can purchase a single Disrupt 2026 Pass here, and Get 50% discount on the second ticket Same ticket type with limited time offer ending May 8 at 11:59 PM PT.
As for what kind of programming will keep you locked in during the three days of Disrupt, let’s dive into our latest panel which will be on the Builders Stage.
Hear on Disrupt how MandA is now an early-stage strategy
If you’ve been following our recent coverage, acquisitions and hiring remain popular, especially in the AI landscape. Whether it was OpenAI acquiring Hiro, Anthropic acquiring Vercept, Google joining the team behind Hume AI, or Databricks acquiring just two startups for its security product, it’s been a busy year!
The acquisition is not the end of a long road for the founders; It can be part of their journey in the early stage. With these and many other acquisitions in mind, we’ve brought together a panel of experts to help provide founders with what they need to know about all the MandA options before them.
Their perspectives will provide you with rules of the game for creating options for a potential sale, ways to make your startup more attractive to buyers, and the realities of navigating an acquisition. And for some background on our panel, let’s learn more about our industry leaders.
Akal Ibsa, Head of Corporate Development and MandA at Coinbase
Aklil Ibssa brings a buyer-side perspective from one of the largest companies in the cryptocurrency space, where he leads the company’s acquisition strategy and execution, helping determine where Coinbase should buy, invest in, stake or build out. He has overseen more than 14 acquisitions and nearly 50 early and late-stage investments, and as one of the first hires on Coinbase’s corporate development team, he has contributed to an MandA program that has become among the most active in the cryptocurrency space, with more than 40 completed acquisitions.
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San Francisco, California
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October 13-15, 2026
More importantly for founders, he’s seen firsthand how strategic buyers evaluate startups: whether for technology, talent, licensing, product speed, and beyond. He will be able to speak to acquisitions, including Deribit, Liquifi and Echo, and high-profile investments in startups such as Kalshi.
Lindsay Mignano, founder of Mignano Law Group
Lindsey Mignano has the legal and structural expertise that often determines whether an early-stage MandA deal can actually make it to the finish line. As founder of Mignano Law Group, she represents technology startups, SMEs, venture-backed startups and venture companies as outside general counsel. Her practice spans everything from securitized securities, priced rounds, and bridge financings to buy-side and sell-side acquisitions, recruiting, and everything else you can think of.
This is uniquely qualified to educate founders without insight into how to begin early MandA preparation. Many of its clients are Series B startups, including SaaS, PaaS, and AI startups – exactly the types of companies now facing strategic interest, and will be able to anchor the conversation in the reality of cap schedules, contracts, asset sales, and the work necessary for acquisitions to occur.
Carl Alomar, Managing Partner, M13
Now is the time for investor and operator to join the conversation. As Managing Partner at M13, Karl Alomar supports Series A founders across infrastructure, fintech, developer productivity, and other categories, and feels the brunt of the AI revolution. He has intimate knowledge of the first strategic decisions founders make: when to raise capital, when to partner, when to accelerate growth, and when an acquisition path might yield the best results for the company, the team, and investors.
As COO of DigitalOcean, Alomar helped build the cloud infrastructure company from its first product to a nearly $250 million ARR and IPO on the New York Stock Exchange, where its valuation peaked at nearly $15 billion. But as a founder, he was part of the acquisition cycle as well. It had grown Chinese export finance revenues to approximately $140 million before its acquisition in 2010, and Clearview Networks was acquired in 2000. This combination gives Carl a keen perspective on the fundamental question facing founders in the audience: When should they continue to build with their team, and when are MandA’s the right path forward?
Get your second ticket at 50% off by May 8
And remember: If you register for Disrupt 2026 by May 8 at 11:59 PM PTYou can take advantage of this offer to get your ticket with a savings of up to $410, and get a 50% discount on a second ticket of the same type of ticket. All the insights Disrupt has to offer are best shared with a partner or colleague, so don’t miss this opportunity!
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