The year keeps moving swiftly, and so is all of our planning for TechCrunch Disrupt 2026! We have an exciting new panel in store for founders in need of merger and acquisition advice … but first, we have a limited-time ticket offer to share.

Disrupt will once again be held in San Francisco’s Moscone West from October 13–15, and for a limited time, attendees can also bring a colleague, co-founder, investor, or teammate for less! You can buy one Disrupt 2026 pass here, and get 50% off a second pass of the same ticket type with a limited-time offer that ends May 8 at 11:59 p.m. PT.

As for the kind of programming that’ll keep you locked in during Disrupt’s three days, let’s dive into our newest panel that will be on the Builders Stage.

Hear at Disrupt how M&A is now an early-stage strategy

If you’ve been following our recent coverage, acquisitions and acqui-hires remain in vogue, especially within the AI scene. Whether it’s OpenAI buying Hiro, Anthropic acquiring Vercept, Google taking the team behind Hume AI, or Databricks pulling in two startups just for its security product, it’s been a busy year!

And being acquired is far from being the end of a long road for founders; it can be part of their early-stage journey. And with those, and many other acquisitions in mind, we’ve gathered an expert panel to help equip founders with what they need to know about all the M&A options that lie before them.

Their perspectives will equip you with a playbook for creating optionality for potentially selling, ways to make your startup more enticing to buyers, and the realities of going through the acquisition process. And for some background on our panel, let’s learn more about our industry leaders.

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

Aklil Ibssa brings a buyer-side perspective from one of the biggest companies in crypto, as he leads the company’s acquisition strategy and execution, helping identify where Coinbase should buy, invest, partner, or build. He’s overseen more than 14 acquisitions and nearly 50 early- and later-stage investments, and as one of the first hires on Coinbase’s corporate development team, he contributed to an M&A program that’s become among the most active in crypto, with more than 40 total completed acquisitions.

Most importantly for founders, he’s seen firsthand how strategic buyers evaluate young companies: whether for technology, talent, licenses, product velocity, and beyond. And he’ll be able to speak to acquisitions, including Deribit, Liquifi, and Echo, and prominent investments in startups like Kalshi.

Lindsey Mignano, Founder, Mignano Law Group

Lindsey Mignano brings the legal and structural expertise that often determines whether an early-stage M&A deal can actually get to the finish line. As founder of Mignano Law Group, she represents emerging technology companies, SMEs, venture-backed startups, and venture firms as outside general counsel. Her practice spans everything from SAFE notes, priced rounds, and bridge financings to buy-side and sell-side acquisitions, acqui-hires, and everything else you can bring to mind.

That uniquely equips her to educate founders without insight into how early M&A readiness can begin. Many of her clients are seed through Series B companies, including enterprise SaaS, PaaS, and AI startups — exactly the kinds of companies now facing strategic interest, and she’ll be able to ground the conversation in the realities of cap tables, contracts, asset sales, and the necessary work for acquisitions to happen.

Karl Alomar, Managing Partner, M13

Now it’s time for an investor and operator to join the conversation. As managing partner at M13, Karl Alomar backs seed and Series A software founders across infrastructure, fintech, developer productivity, and other categories, feeling the brunt of the AI revolution. He has intimate knowledge of the earliest strategic decisions founders make: when to raise, when to partner, when to accelerate growth, and when an acquisition path may create 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 roughly $250 million in ARR and an eventual NYSE IPO, with its valuation peaking around $15 billion. But as a founder, he’s been a part of the acquisition cycle too. China Export Finance grew to approximately $140 million in revenue before being acquired in 2010, and Clearview Networks was acquired in 2000. That combination gives Karl a nuanced perspective on the core question facing founders in the audience: When should they keep building with their team, and when is M&A the right path forward?

Get your second pass at 50% off by May 8

And remember: If you register for Disrupt 2026 by May 8 at 11:59 p.m. PT, you can take advantage of that offer to get your pass with savings of up to $410, and get 50% off a second pass of the same ticket type. All the insights Disrupt offers are best shared with a partner or colleague, so don’t miss this opportunity!