Bre Pettis, Jeff Clavier, And Matt Rogers Will Join Us At Hardware Battlefield In Vegas

With the rise of crowdfunding and easier paths to manufacturing, there are more gadgeteers than ever before. And we’re looking for some of the best hardware startups to compete on our Las Vegas stage for a giant $50,000 check, tons of publicity and the brand new Hardware Battlefield cup.

We are pleased to announce that Makerbot’s Bre Pettis, VC Jeff Clavier, and Nest founder Matt Rogers have all agreed to be judges for the competition. Each one will bring their years of experience to bear on what should be an amazing event.

Like Startup Battlefield, this new competition will pit 20 hardware startups against each other. The winner will be chosen by VCs, makers and TechCrunch Editors.

The best thing? The Hardware Battlefield is taking place at CES 2014 in Las Vegas but is open to all comers and you don’t need a conference badge to enter, attend the battlefield events, or simply spectate. Our goal is to find the diamond in the CE rough. We don’t care about Samsung, Sony, and Philips -– we care about you.

It’s free to enter. The competition is open to all hardware companies who are planning to launch (crowdfund or ship) product in a two week window before or after January 10. You can still be in prototyping stage but you must have a working, usable product by January 7 and be ready to offer pre-orders on that day or soon thereafter. We recommend launching your crowdsourcing page during the event, however, as it will have maximum impact.

We will have more details shortly but for now we invite you to submit your product. The rules are simple:

1. You must launch your product or crowdfunding campaign before January 7.
2. You must be a single proprietor or small company.
3. This must not be a feature update to an existing product.
4. You must be able to attend rehearsals and sessions in Las Vegas prior to CES and during the show.
5. You must launch first with TechCrunch and approach other media after you appear on our stage.

We will pick 15 entrants on October 30 and announce the location, time, and judges closer to the event. The grand prize winner will get $50,000 to go towards research, development, or whatever else your team needs to get by. All projects will be kept confidential until January 7.

We are very excited about this new event and we want to make it the best one ever. Remember to email sponsors@techcrunch.com if you’d like to sponsor the festivities and if you have any questions email john@techcrunch.com. We look forward to seeing what you’re working and we hope to see you in Vegas!