Sponsor Startups of the Year 2026 and Reach One of the Web's Largest Startup Communities

Sponsorships for HackerNoon's Startups of The Year 2026 are now open!

Startups of The Year is HackerNoon's annual community-driven awards program celebrating the world's most innovative startups across industries and cities.If your company builds products or services for startups, founders, developers, or technical teams, this is an opportunity to reach one of the internet's largest startup communities.Sponsors in the previous iterations includedHubSpot, Wellfound, Notion, Bright Data, Algolia, Brex, and others.

The sponsorship slots are now open! Want to learn more? Let's chat!

Startups of the Year: What’s in it for Sponsors?

Conference Booths typically go for $50K, where you get 3 days of expensive exposure, fragmented startup audiences in an offline setting that accesses only a fraction of what online delivers. Not to mention expenses in travel, build-out, and staffing that would add 30-50% on top.

Online events, meanwhile, tend to target students rather than actual startups — a mismatch for your sponsorship goals.

What makes Startups of The Year different?

We grew 28x with no panel of judges, no pay-to-play awards. The internet nominates, the internet votes — classified by city and industry so no single hub dominates.

The 2024 edition brought together:

Instead of sponsoring a single event, you're part of every major milestone: nominations, voting, editorial coverage, newsletters, social campaigns, press releases, and the winners announcement.

This is what sustained visibility looks like:

Startups of the Year 2026: Sponsorship Packages

Ideal for: Companies with startup programs that need eyeballs above everything.

Best for industry/niche targeting

Ideal for: Companies targeting a specific segment — e.g. a security platform owning Cybersecurity.

\ Includes everything in Community, plus:**

Best for co-branding everywhere

Ideal for:Companies that want to be synonymous with startup success. Only 1 slot available.Includes everything in Ecosystem, plus:

We expect to finalize sponsors within the next 30 days to maximize visibility via our ANN posts, PRs, social posts, and more!

Only 15 slots left — book yours!