Central Eurasia crowns cybersecurity, student wellbeing and ad-tech startups as Road to Battlefield 2026 winners

Three startups — Cerberus, WeGlobal AI, and LOOQ — have been named winners of the Road to TechCrunch Startup Battlefield 2026 regional competition covering Central Eurasia. The trio will represent the region in the Startup Battlefield 200 program at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 in San Francisco on October 13-15, an event expected to draw more than 10,000 tech industry attendees.

This year's competition attracted a record 726 applications from 39 countries, nearly 50% more than the 485 applications from 27 countries submitted in the 2025 edition. National rounds narrowed the field to 22 finalists, who pitched before a jury of 47 people from eight countries, alongside an AI judge called AI-Dana participating for the second consecutive year.

The competition is organized by Silkroad Innovation Hub together with TechCrunch, Freedom Holding, Astana Hub, and IT Park Uzbekistan. Of all applicants this year, 84% were building AI-based products, a trend reflected in all three winning companies.

The winners

First place went to Uzbekistan's Cerberus, an AI-powered tool that automatically searches for vulnerabilities in corporate IT systems, marking the country's first-ever win in the competition. Second place went to Kazakhstan's WeGlobal AI, which provides schools with AI tools to monitor student mental health and offer career guidance, addressing a shortage of school psychologists. Third place went to Japan's LOOQ, which builds camera-based hardware and an "attention API" to measure how many people actually see outdoor advertisements such as billboards.

The three winners will share a $100,000 investment pool funded by Astana Hub Ventures, IT Park Ventures, and Silkroad Innovation Hub, with Cerberus receiving $50,000, WeGlobal AI $30,000, and LOOQ $20,000 in exchange for equity. OpenAI also awarded a combined $280,000 in API credits across all 22 finalists, with the three winners receiving the largest share.