Founders attending TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026 will hear from representatives from Toast to Bessemer.

TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026 will take place on November 4 at SoWa Power Station in Boston, bringing founders, investors, and operators together for a full day focused on the decisions that shape early-stage companies. Hosted by TechCrunch in partnership with Fidelity Private Shares, the event moves past fundraising and AI hype to examine customer acquisition, team building, pitch craft, founder leadership, and scaling both inside and outside traditional startup hubs. Tickets are currently available at 25% off, and a limited buy-one-get-one offer lets attendees bring a colleague for free.

The agenda is organized around questions founders face before they have full answers: when to scale, how to recognize genuine product-market fit, what it takes to win enterprise customers, how to assemble the right team, and how to pitch in a way that earns a second meeting.

Background: A Boston-Centric Program With National Reach

The Summit's through line is the idea that ambitious companies can be built in Boston without copying Silicon Valley. That theme runs through several sessions, including talks from founders and investors who have scaled businesses from the region and from outside the Bay Area ecosystem.

Steve Fredette, president, co-founder, and director of Toast, will take the Impact Stage for "Building a Company That Keeps Reinventing Itself." Toast's trajectory—identifying a customer problem, finding product-market fit, winning customers, and scaling a Boston startup into a public company—serves as a case study for attendees. Fredette's conversation will focus on what it takes to keep evolving a company as customer expectations, technology, and the market change, while staying connected to the needs that created the business.

Chase Garbarino, CEO and co-founder of HqO, will present "The Boston Founder Playbook," examining what building and scaling from Boston means for talent, customers, capital, and community. Paired with Fredette's Toast story, the session gives the 2026 program a strong local anchor for founders across New England and the broader East Coast.

Development: Product-Market Fit, Scaling Discipline, and AI-Native Building

Kent Bennett, partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, will lead "Finding Product Market Fit Before You Scale," addressing one of the most consequential questions for early-stage founders: are customers actually signaling readiness to grow? The session pushes founders to think critically about the signals that matter before adding headcount, increasing spend, or accelerating go-to-market efforts—a counterpoint to startup culture's constant pressure to move faster.

Rudina Seseri, founder and managing partner of Glasswing Ventures, will explore the same tension in "When to Scale and When to Hit the Brakes." Her session examines how founders can distinguish moments that call for acceleration from moments when restraint protects the business, and why knowing when not to scale can be as consequential as going all in.

Lior Div, CEO and co-founder of 7AI, will tackle the difference between adding AI to an existing process and building a company around it from the start in "Built for AI From Day One." The conversation is aimed at founders thinking beyond AI as a feature and toward how it shapes the architecture and operating model of an entire company.

Latest: Pitch Practice, Live Judging, and the Wider Agenda

Dave Balter, venture partner at True Ventures and CEO of Edisyl, will explore pitch craft in "Your Pitch Has to Earn the Next Conversation." The session is built on the premise that a pitch does not need to close a deal—it needs to make someone want the next conversation, and that knowing a business and communicating its story are distinct skills.

That theory gets tested live at "So You Think You Can Pitch?" on the Build Stage, where founders will present to an investor judging panel. Balter will be joined by Chirag Shah, partner at Define Ventures, and Simran Suri, principal at Maveron. Attendees can watch how founders make an idea connect under limited time and hear investor reactions in real time.

The rest of the program covers decisions founders are facing now. Hunter Worland of NEA will explore why distribution may become a startup's next competitive advantage. Vineet Edupuganti, co-founder and CEO of Cogent Security, will discuss building 10x teams. Tina Tosukhowong of TDK Ventures will examine the hidden signals that can identify category winners. Fidelity Private Shares will add its perspective on fundraising trends with Kristen Craft and on enterprise relationships with Evan Schnidman.

What to Watch

The full-day event includes candid founder conversations, practical sessions, smaller roundtables, live pitching, networking, and a closing reception presented by Fidelity Private Shares. With the event approaching and spots limited, registration remains open at the discounted rate. For founders weighing when to scale, how to prove product-market fit, and how to build a company that keeps reinventing itself, the November 4 program offers a concentrated look at how operators and investors on both sides of the table approach those calls.