Dexa takes Dayton-built drone delivery to TechCrunch Disrupt

Dexa will spend three days in October explaining an unusual business to a room accustomed to software. The Dayton drone delivery company has been selected for TechCrunch's Startup Battlefield 200 and will exhibit and pitch at Disrupt 2026 in San Francisco from Oct. 13 to 15. TechCrunch named the cohort in August, selecting 200 companies from a global applicant pool. They compete for the Disrupt Cup and $100,000 in equity-free prize money.

What separates Dexa from most of the field is that it does not sell a product that can be demonstrated on a laptop. The company designs and builds its own aircraft in Dayton, holds a Federal Aviation Administration Part 135 air carrier certificate and flies paid commercial deliveries. Part 135 is the same category of certificate the FAA requires of small passenger and cargo airlines, and earning one takes years.

"Being selected from thousands of companies around the world is a huge moment for Dexa," founder and CEO Beth Flippo said in a statement. "We have spent years proving that drone delivery can move beyond the idea stage and become a real, scalable part of the delivery ecosystem. We believe the future of delivery is in the air, and we are just getting started."

By the numbers

• 200: companies in the Startup Battlefield cohort
• $100,000: equity-free prize money, plus the Disrupt Cup
• Oct. 13 to 15: Disrupt 2026, San Francisco
• 3: days Dexa will exhibit in the Battlefield expo hall
• 4: U.S. companies holding FAA airworthiness certification, a Part 135 certificate and a national beyond visual line of sight waiver at once

What Dexa built in Dayton

Dexa operated as Drone Express before rebranding. Flippo moved the company to Dayton in 2020 after signing Kroger as an anchor customer, and it has since flown deliveries for Papa John's and Winsupply along with restaurant and grocery partners. In June the company completed what Ohio Tech News reported as the state's first food delivery by drone, an autonomous round trip of about a mile and a half.

The regulatory position is the part investors tend to notice. Dexa is one of four U.S. companies holding FAA airworthiness certification, a Part 135 air carrier certificate and a national beyond visual line of sight waiver simultaneously. The other three are Amazon, Google's Wing and Zipline, all of which spent considerably more to get there.

Dayton's role in that is not incidental. The company operates from the region that produced the Wright brothers, and Flippo has said the symmetry of building future flight where flight started is not lost on the team.

What is still unsaid

The company said it will release technology, product and company updates in the weeks before Disrupt, without describing what they cover. Those announcements, rather than the Battlefield selection itself, are likely to determine what Dexa actually arrives in San Francisco with.

"For us, Disrupt is about more than getting on a stage," Flippo added in the release. "It is an opportunity to put our technology in front of the people who are helping shape what comes next. We are excited to show investors, partners and the broader technology community what Dexa is building and why we believe aerial delivery will become an essential part of how goods move."

Dexa will staff a table in the Battlefield expo hall for all three days of the conference, where attendees can meet the team and watch flight demonstration videos, and will deliver its pitch on the showcase stage set aside for the 200. Past Startup Battlefield companies include Dropbox, Cloudflare and Discord.

Disrupt 2026 runs Oct. 13 to 15 in San Francisco.