AUSTIN, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)–CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD) today announced the six finalists for the third annual Cybersecurity Startup Accelerator with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and NVIDIA through its Inception program – with finalists set to take the stage at Startup Nest, the live pitch event at RSAC™ 2026, where the next generation of cybersecurity leaders is decided. Cybersecurity expert and entrepreneur Robert Herjavec will also join the Startup Nest judging panel.
“What CrowdStrike has built in its Cybersecurity Accelerator with key partners AWS and NVIDIA is remarkable in bringing tomorrow’s innovators to the forefront,” said Robert Herjavec, investor and executive producer of ‘Shark Tank.’ “The companies on this stage aren’t just pitching ideas – they’re building the future of how cybersecurity is delivered, and I couldn’t be more excited to share my perspectives.”
Selected from nearly 1,000 global applicants, this year’s finalists represent a new wave of innovation – startups building AI- and cloud-native security to protect modern infrastructure, secure AI systems, and stop threats at machine speed.
Finalists of the 2026 Cohort include:
The finalists will take the stage on March 24 at RSAC™ 2026, pitching live in front of a judging panel that includes George Kurtz, CEO and founder of CrowdStrike; CJ Moses, chief information security officer at Amazon; Bartley Richardson, senior director of agentic AI and cybersecurity engineering at NVIDIA; and Herjavec.
“It takes a Crowd to build the next generation of cybersecurity. Our Accelerator with AWS and NVIDIA is how we do that,” said Daniel Bernard, chief business officer at CrowdStrike. “With AWS bringing the cloud, CrowdStrike securing it, and NVIDIA accelerating it with AI, this accelerator has become a proving ground for what comes next. These finalists represent where cybersecurity is going – and who’s going to define it.”
This accelerator reflects a fundamental shift in cybersecurity: decision-making is moving upstream – into the platforms that determine which innovations scale, and which don’t.
That shift will define where innovation comes from, how quickly companies grow, and ultimately, who shapes the future of enterprise security.
See It Live at RSAC™ 2026
The Cybersecurity Startup Accelerator finals will take place Tuesday, March 24, from 2–4 PM in San Francisco. Register to attend: https://events.crowdstrike.com/startupnestrsac/.
About CrowdStrike
CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD), a global cybersecurity leader, has redefined modern security with the world’s most advanced cloud-native platform for protecting critical areas of enterprise risk – endpoints and cloud workloads, identity and data.
Powered by the CrowdStrike Security Cloud and world-class AI, the CrowdStrike Falcon® platform leverages real-time indicators of attack, threat intelligence, evolving adversary tradecraft and enriched telemetry from across the enterprise to deliver hyper-accurate detections, automated protection and remediation, elite threat hunting and prioritized observability of vulnerabilities.
Purpose-built in the cloud with a single lightweight-agent architecture, the Falcon platform delivers rapid and scalable deployment, superior protection and performance, reduced complexity and immediate time-to-value.
CrowdStrike: We stop breaches.
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Media Contact
Jake Schuster
CrowdStrike Corporate Communications
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