Sponsorships for HackerNoon's
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 included
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
- 150,000+ startup nominees
- 6M+ community votes
- 100+ technology industries
- 5,000+ cities across 6 continents
- 7M+ impressions on socials (and this just includes our posts!)
- Over 5 months of reading time on HackerNoon
- 52.6% Open Rate and 35.5% CTR
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:
- Above-The-Fold: Your logo lives on every page of startups.hackernoon.com, all campaign long
- Waterfall Marketing: Your brand in every send to our 145K-founder list (24.1% avg open rate)
- Permanent SEO/AEO: Sponsor mentions embedded in every nominee and winner story, indexed and discoverable long after the campaign ends
- Social Magnification: 5K+ LinkedIn posts, 6K+ X posts plus organic reach from 150K+ participating startups
- Monthly ANN Posts: Co-branded at peak engagement with 52.6% open rate and 35.5% CTR, highest of any HackerNoon email
- Multi-Trigger Flow: First-touch email to every participant, 32.6% open rate and 31% CTR
Startups of the Year 2026: Sponsorship Packages
Community Sponsors 🫂
Best for regional targeting
Ideal for: Companies with startup programs that need eyeballs above everything.
It includes:
- Logo on every winner image
- Logo on every press release
- Logo on full category pages
- Logo on website full duration
- Target post inclusion
- Target by region OR industry
- Mid-panel banner on site
Ecosystem Sponsors 🔄
Best for industry/niche targeting
Ideal for: Companies targeting a specific segment — e.g. a security platform owning Cybersecurity.
\ Includes everything in Community, plus:**
- Exclusive ecosystem page
- Clickable category ads
- Targeted newsletter - your CTA
- User onboarding funnel
- Big banner on site
- Founder interview + A/V
- Trigger email to 145K list
Headline Sponsors ⭐
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:
- Name & logo first on all assets
- Largest logo across materials
- Category naming rights
- Dedicated newsletter to 145K
- "Presented by" on Homepage
- CEO quote in press releases
- 6-month evergreen banner
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!