Tattd gave four TechCrunch writers tattoos at Startup Battlefield

Tuesday morning at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, our senior producer Maggie Nye rolled up her jacket sleeve to show me her new tattoo: a classic, pixelated cursor arrow. TechCrunch’s Becca Szkutak got a matching cursor, while Theresa Loconsolo got a smiling moon.

I assumed that during all the Disrupt hoopla, Maggie and Becca were hanging out at some trendy San Francisco tattoo shop to solidify their friendship with some suitably tech-themed ink (and maybe Theresa was there too?). It seemed like a more logical explanation than reality, that they got these tattoos at Disrupt — yes, literally at Disrupt, on the convention floor of the Moscone Center, while upstairs, perhaps there was a discussion going on about product-market fit or agentic AI.

Hundreds of startups showed their stuff in the expo hall as part of Battlefield 200 — there Robo Chef, Aerospace insurance providerA Shortcuts for plastic recycling — and then amid the chaos, Tattd turned their booth into a mini tattoo shop.

Tattd is a platform that helps tattoo seekers find artists whose portfolio matches the type of tattoo they are looking for.

The startup uses generative AI to create mockups of a design, but these synthetic designs aren’t actually inked on someone’s body. Rather, Tattd uses a reverse image search to find an AI-generated design with an artist whose work is similar to a mockup, so that the client and artist can work together to create an original design, as they usually do when they connect with a tattoo artist.

“If you go to ChatGPT and say something like, ‘I want to see a butterfly in a Japanese traditional style,’ they don’t know what that means,” says TechCrunch founder Laura Shak.

Just a few feet away, TechCrunch deputy managing editor Caryn Levy was tattooing an escape key on her upper arm.

Prior to founding Tattd, Schaak managed operations for two startups: WearAway, a fashion rental company acquired by Greene, and Lemonsqueeze, a market expansion platform acquired. Knotel. But Shak always had an eye for the arts. He studied art history at New York University, and his body is decorated with a collage of tattoos — in Disrupt, he’s got a California postage stamp by his elbow.

“There are a lot of people who have tried to break into the tattoo industry without tattoos, and they’ve all failed,” says Shuck. While you can’t judge a founder by their looks, he says their lack of tattoos reflects their lack of interest, investment or experience in the industry.

“I’m deeply passionate about this art, I tattoo a lot, and I’m here to help artists build businesses in a way that takes care of both the client and the artist,” he said. Tattd has 900 artists and the platform helps them find healthcare and financial advisors with third parties.

Shaq says about 30 people got tattoos in the three days of TechCrunch Disrupt.

There was a TechCrunch logo on the flash sheet, but (unfortunately), no one inked their love for our brand on their bodies.