Tattd gave four TechCrunch writers tattoos at Startup Battlefield

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On Tuesday greeting astatine TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, our Senior Producer Maggie Nye rolled up her overgarment sleeve to amusement maine her caller tattoo: a classic, pixelated cursor arrow. TechCrunch’s Becca Szkutak got a matching cursor, portion Theresa Loconsolo got a smiling moon.

I guessed that astatine immoderate constituent during each the Disrupt hoopla, Maggie and Becca wandered disconnected to immoderate trendy San Francisco tattoo store to cement their relationship with appropriately tech-themed ink (and possibly Theresa was determination too?) That seemed similar a much logical mentation than the reality, which is that they got these tattoos astatine Disrupt — yes, virtually astatine Disrupt, connected the Moscone Center’s normal floor, portion upstairs, determination was astir apt a speech going connected astir product-market acceptable oregon agentic AI.

Hundreds of startups showed their worldly successful the expo hallway arsenic portion of the Battlefield 200 — there’s robo chefs, spacecraft security providers, a shortcut for recycling plastic — and past amid the chaos, Tattd turned their booth into a mini tattoo shop.

Tattd is simply a level that helps tattoo seekers find artists whose portfolios lucifer the benignant of tattoo they’re looking for.

The startup uses generative AI to make a mockup of a design, but these synthetic designs aren’t really getting inked connected anyone’s body. Rather, Tattd puts the AI-generated plan done a reverse representation hunt to find an creator whose enactment resembles the mockup, truthful that the lawsuit and creator tin enactment unneurotic to make an archetypal design, arsenic 1 usually would erstwhile they get connected with a tattoo artist.

“If you spell to ChatGPT and accidental thing like, ‘I privation to spot a butterfly successful a Japanese accepted benignant with heavier lines,’ they don’t cognize what that means,” laminitis Laura Schaak told TechCrunch.

Just feet away, TechCrunch Deputy Managing Editor Karyne Levy was getting an flight cardinal tattooed connected her precocious arm.

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Before founding Tattd, Schaak led operations for 2 startups: WearAway, a manner rental institution acquired by Grin, and Lemonsqueeze, a marketplace enlargement level acquired by Knotel. But Schaak has ever had an oculus for the arts. She studied creation past astatine New York University, and her assemblage is decorated with a collage of tattoos — astatine Disrupt, she got a California postage stamp by her elbow.

“There is simply a fig of radical that person tried to participate the tattoo manufacture without tattoos, and they person each failed,” Schaak said. While you can’t justice a laminitis by their appearance, she says that their deficiency of tattoos reflected their deficiency of interest, investment, oregon acquisition successful the industry.

“I’m truthful profoundly passionate astir this industry, I’m heavy tattooed, and I’m present to enactment artists to physique businesses successful a mode that some the lawsuit and the creator are taken attraction of,” she said. There are 9 100 artists connected Tattd, and the level partners with a 3rd enactment to assistance them find healthcare and fiscal advisors.