20 countries are represented</p>\n<ul>\n<li>6 new countries represented: Algeria, Tunisia, Senegal, Chile, Brazil, and Singapore</li>\n<li>Of the companies that are new to the list, 28% are outside of the US.</li>\n</ul>\n</li>\n<li>\n<p>Top 10 valuation jumps since July 2021:</p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/flock-safety/">Flock Safety</a> (jumped 74 spots to #31)</li>\n<li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/solugen/">Solugen (jumped 74 spots to #51)</li>\n<li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/gem/">Gem (jumped 69 spots to #76)</li>\n<li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/modern-treasury/">Modern Treasury</a> (jumped 52 spots to #48)</li>\n<li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/xendit/">Xendit (jumped 49 spots to #37)</li>\n<li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/captivateiq/">CaptivateIQ (jumped 35 spots to #71)</li>\n<li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/easypost/">EasyPost (jumped 34 spots to #60)</li>\n<li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/h1/">H1 (jumped 30 spots to #98)</li>\n<li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/veriff/">Veriff (jumped 28 spots to #61)</li>\n<li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/promise/">Promise (jumped 21 spots to #121)</li>\n</ul>\n</li>\n</ul>\n<p>You can read more about some of the featured companies <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/topcompanies/featured/">here.
/nOne thing to note is that this is not an exhaustive list of YC’s top companies. We allowed founders to opt out of being listed for any reason. Here's the <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/">full list</a> of YC companies.</p>\n<p>Congratulations to all of the fantastic companies highlighted here. We’re delighted to be part of their stories and hope these lists help potential employees, customers and investors identify companies they’d like to work with as well.<br>\n<br></p>\n<p><em>This list was published in late February 2022, just as the fighting in Ukraine began. We didn’t think it was an appropriate moment to be celebratory, and wanted to take time to turn our attention to <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/supporting-ukraine/">the Ukrainian people</a> and the YC community being impacted by the invasion of Ukraine.</em><br>\n<br></p>\n<hr class=\"footnotes-sep\">\n<section class=\"footnotes\">\n<ol class=\"footnotes-list\">\n<li id=\"fn1\" class=\"footnote-item\"><p>Why do we use valuation? We have always said that valuation is not the best way to measure a company’s value, and we consistently warn our companies not to over-optimize their fundraising for a high valuation. That said, it’s the most commonly available metric to compare companies in the startup world. Other metrics, like revenue, are often kept private. We have a number of impressive companies who would appear on the list or rank even higher if we counted other metrics (revenue, revenue/employee, etc). <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#fnref1\" class=\"footnote-backref\">↩︎</a></p>\n</li>\n</ol>\n</section>\n<!--kg-card-end: markdown-->","comment_id":"620da5f7d710a50001fba7dd","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/yc-top-companies-list-og-image-2.png","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2022-02-16T17:33:43.000-08:00","updated_at":"2022-04-19T16:33:56.000-07:00","published_at":"2022-02-28T08:44:00.000-08:00","custom_excerpt":"We’re excited to share the 2022 YC Top Companies. 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Combinator","slug":"yc","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/yc.png","cover_image":null,"bio":null,"website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/yc/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/y-combinator-top-companies-feb-2022/","excerpt":"We’re excited to share the 2022 YC Top Companies. In addition to the list of top companies, we’ve also launched the YC Breakthrough List to highlight the fast-growing companies that have received between $15M-$300M from YC.","reading_time":2,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":"Y Combinator Top Companies - February 2022","feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"62fa7b87ab52db0001d3b656","uuid":"c432a242-4288-4980-a6e9-d9c82359c9ad","title":"YC Founder Firesides: Gusto on building for new verticals","slug":"yc-founder-firesides-gusto-on-building-for-new-verticals","html":"<p><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://gusto.com//">Gusto (<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/gusto/">YC W12</a>) provides growing businesses with everything to take care of their team. Today, more than 200,000 businesses use Gusto for payroll, employee benefits, talent management, and more. And with the recent addition of <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://embedded.gusto.com//">Gusto Embedded</a>, developers now use Gusto’s APIs and pre-build UI flows to embed payroll, tax filing, and payments infrastructure into products. </p><p>Last week, Gusto <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://gusto.com/company-news/gusto-embedded-one-year-in-fueling-smb-tech-success-at-scale-with-critical-compliance-/">announced they have dozens of new partners across verticals like laundromats, health & beauty, and construction building with Gusto Embedded. The company also announced they are making it easier for software providers to keep their payroll customers in compliance.</p><p>YC’s <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://twitter.com/anuhariharan/status/1557784730543632384/">Anu Hariharan</a> sat down with Gusto co-founder and CPO <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://twitter.com/tomerlondon/">Tomer London</a> to talk about building for new customer segments and the future of embedded finance — sharing advice for startup founders and CEOs along the way. </p><div class=\"kg-card kg-audio-card\"><img src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/media/2022/08/Founder-Fireside---Tomer-London--Gusto-_thumb.jpg?v=1660587475243\" alt=\"audio-thumbnail\" class=\"kg-audio-thumbnail\"><div class=\"kg-audio-thumbnail placeholder kg-audio-hide\"><svg width=\"24\" height=\"24\" fill=\"none\" xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/2000/svg\"><path fill-rule=\"evenodd\" clip-rule=\"evenodd\" d=\"M7.5 15.33a.75.75 0 1 0 0 1.5.75.75 0 0 0 0-1.5Zm-2.25.75a2.25 2.25 0 1 1 4.5 0 2.25 2.25 0 0 1-4.5 0ZM15 13.83a.75.75 0 1 0 0 1.5.75.75 0 0 0 0-1.5Zm-2.25.75a2.25 2.25 0 1 1 4.5 0 2.25 2.25 0 0 1-4.5 0Z\"/><path fill-rule=\"evenodd\" clip-rule=\"evenodd\" d=\"M14.486 6.81A2.25 2.25 0 0 1 17.25 9v5.579a.75.75 0 0 1-1.5 0v-5.58a.75.75 0 0 0-.932-.727.755.755 0 0 1-.059.013l-4.465.744a.75.75 0 0 0-.544.72v6.33a.75.75 0 0 1-1.5 0v-6.33a2.25 2.25 0 0 1 1.763-2.194l4.473-.746Z\"/><path fill-rule=\"evenodd\" clip-rule=\"evenodd\" d=\"M3 1.5a.75.75 0 0 0-.75.75v19.5a.75.75 0 0 0 .75.75h18a.75.75 0 0 0 .75-.75V5.133a.75.75 0 0 0-.225-.535l-.002-.002-3-2.883A.75.75 0 0 0 18 1.5H3ZM1.409.659A2.25 2.25 0 0 1 3 0h15a2.25 2.25 0 0 1 1.568.637l.003.002 3 2.883a2.25 2.25 0 0 1 .679 1.61V21.75A2.25 2.25 0 0 1 21 24H3a2.25 2.25 0 0 1-2.25-2.25V2.25c0-.597.237-1.169.659-1.591Z\"/></svg></div><div class=\"kg-audio-player-container\"><audio src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/media/2022/08/Founder-Fireside---Tomer-London--Gusto-.mp3/" preload=\"metadata\"></audio><div class=\"kg-audio-title\">Founder Firesides: Gusto's Tomer London on building for new verticals</div><div class=\"kg-audio-player\"><button class=\"kg-audio-play-icon\"><svg xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/2000/svg\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\"><path d=\"M23.14 10.608 2.253.164A1.559 1.559 0 0 0 0 1.557v20.887a1.558 1.558 0 0 0 2.253 1.392L23.14 13.393a1.557 1.557 0 0 0 0-2.785Z\"/></svg></button><button class=\"kg-audio-pause-icon kg-audio-hide\"><svg xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/2000/svg\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\"><rect x=\"3\" y=\"1\" width=\"7\" height=\"22\" rx=\"1.5\" ry=\"1.5\"/><rect x=\"14\" y=\"1\" width=\"7\" height=\"22\" rx=\"1.5\" ry=\"1.5\"/></svg></button><span class=\"kg-audio-current-time\">0:00</span><div class=\"kg-audio-time\">/<span class=\"kg-audio-duration\">118:07</span></div><input type=\"range\" class=\"kg-audio-seek-slider\" max=\"100\" value=\"0\"><button class=\"kg-audio-playback-rate\">1×</button><button class=\"kg-audio-unmute-icon\"><svg xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/2000/svg\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\"><path d=\"M15.189 2.021a9.728 9.728 0 0 0-7.924 4.85.249.249 0 0 1-.221.133H5.25a3 3 0 0 0-3 3v2a3 3 0 0 0 3 3h1.794a.249.249 0 0 1 .221.133 9.73 9.73 0 0 0 7.924 4.85h.06a1 1 0 0 0 1-1V3.02a1 1 0 0 0-1.06-.998Z\"/></svg></button><button class=\"kg-audio-mute-icon kg-audio-hide\"><svg xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/2000/svg\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\"><path d=\"M16.177 4.3a.248.248 0 0 0 .073-.176v-1.1a1 1 0 0 0-1.061-1 9.728 9.728 0 0 0-7.924 4.85.249.249 0 0 1-.221.133H5.25a3 3 0 0 0-3 3v2a3 3 0 0 0 3 3h.114a.251.251 0 0 0 .177-.073ZM23.707 1.706A1 1 0 0 0 22.293.292l-22 22a1 1 0 0 0 0 1.414l.009.009a1 1 0 0 0 1.405-.009l6.63-6.631A.251.251 0 0 1 8.515 17a.245.245 0 0 1 .177.075 10.081 10.081 0 0 0 6.5 2.92 1 1 0 0 0 1.061-1V9.266a.247.247 0 0 1 .073-.176Z\"/></svg></button><input type=\"range\" class=\"kg-audio-volume-slider\" max=\"100\" value=\"100\"></div></div></div><p>You can also listen on <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://open.spotify.com/episode/0FTnE08QzuCg6I21S4PB8e?si=ShDfsjwnRWKYH0LjwzI-rg\%22>Spotify, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/159-yc-founder-firesides-gusto-on-building-for-new/id1236907421?i=1000576161014\%22>Apple Podcasts</a>, and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1dRKZldrvOzJB?s=20\%22>Twitter.
1:28 - Tomer describes Gusto Embedded and the complexities behind compliance.</p><ul><li>Gusto Embedded takes ten years of Gusto’s experience building payroll software and compliance and makes it available to any software company wanting to ship their own payroll product to the market. </li></ul><p><strong>5:00 </strong>- Why did you decide to pursue startups as the company’s first target audience? How did you think about customer segments in that first year? </p><p><em>Over the last ten years, Gusto has scaled to build for multiple customer segments – starting with startups, then SMBs, accountants, and now with Gusto Embedded Payroll, developers who are embedding payroll directly into their software. </em></p><ul><li>When you have a grand vision, where do you start as a founder? Choose a customer segment. Make sure you choose a segment where 1) they have an important customer problem, 2) the product you are building solves that problem, and 3) you can reach your customer. </li></ul><p><strong>9:30 </strong>- Who were your competitors in the early days? </p><ul><li>The old, traditional payroll solutions, which were complex. With Gusto, <em>anyone</em> can run payroll at <em>any time</em>. Gusto also focuses on employees, a critical part of the system, by building a great payroll experience for them. </li></ul><p><strong>11:30 </strong>- Why did you decide to build for SMBs after startups? </p><ul><li>Look at your current customer base and learn from customers adjacent to the market you want to expand into. When you do expand into another vertical, make sure you maintain that early customer love. </li></ul><p><strong>14:45</strong> - How did you maintain the customer love of the existing customer segment? </p><ul><li>Think about your long-term vision and don’t put yourself in a corner when you want to move to the next segment. </li></ul><p><strong>17:00</strong> - Most startups find it hard to tackle the SMB market. Why do you think this is the case? </p><ul><li>Traditionally SMBs are hard to reach and use incomplete or manual solutions. Since 2000 an entire generation of business owners had to learn to trust online financial services. Today, SMBs are online and looking for solutions.</li></ul><p><strong>22:25 </strong>- What is different about serving SMBs as a customer versus startups? </p><ul><li>Startups come and go, and the real economics come from the big winners. Focusing on startups is a good place to start your journey, but think about how to scale with them.</li><li>There are more small businesses than startups, and they are around for a long time – but most don’t grow to thousands of employees. You need to build a business model that works with that dynamic. </li></ul><p><strong>27:00 - </strong>Why did you pursue developers and how did you decide to service them? </p><ul><li>For many verticals, it is much better to have an all-in-one platform to run your small businesses. But payroll is really hard to build yourself. Gusto Embedded helps partners deliver a more integrated solution for customers without investing the several years and tens of millions of dollars.</li></ul><p><strong>29:00 </strong>- Gusto went from directly acquiring small businesses as customers to creating an embedded solution – essentially “giving up” the relationship with the customer. How did you think about that? </p><ul><li>Evaluate the future of the industry and don’t ignore reality. Be the one to create that future. In this case, many payroll customers want all-in-one solutions. We can either try to meet those needs directly, or empower hundreds of partners to customize unique solutions.</li></ul><p><strong>33:00 - </strong>How should founders think about who to partner with? When should founders build directly for the industry and when should they go the embedded route? </p><ul><li>Think about the unique insight you have in the business you’re creating and make sure you own your destiny around that insight.</li><li>For your customer, what does a successful product look like, and could you partner with a company to fulfill those needs.</li><li>Your product must be high-quality. You have to put enough resources behind whatever you own. For everything else, you must ensure you bring in the right partner. It’s all about the end-to-end experience. </li></ul><p><strong>39:30</strong> - Gusto now makes it easier for software providers to bake compliance into embedded payroll. Tomer, I think developers looking at a payroll API would assume that compliance is baked in. But there are often steps companies have to take beyond just calling APIs. Tell us if that assumption holds.</p><ul><li>Regulation can change every quarter and every year. This is built into the product. We protect the customer and make it easy for developers to ship something quickly that is compliant for the long term.</li><li>One third of the companies in the U.S. get fined for mistakes on payroll. </li></ul><p><strong>43:00 - </strong>Compliance is the hardest part of payroll to build and ultimately has to be right. It took ten years of experience in compliance to launch this into Gusto Embedded Payroll. What advice do you have for founders who are building complicated, yet essential, components for an industry?</p><ul><li>Determine the parts of your product that are highly regulated and which areas are not. Build a culture that ensures quality-first in those highly-regulated areas, as well as a culture where people can iterate quickly in other areas. You can’t build a monolithic culture.</li><li>Embrace cross functional work. </li></ul><p><strong>46:00 </strong>- In the early days of Gusto, what guidance did you provide to your engineers about building payroll? What areas could break and which areas could not break? </p><p><strong>48:40</strong> - Looking back, would you have done anything different? </p><ul><li>Start charging what you feel is the value you provide; fix downwards versus upwards. If you’re truly adding value, customers won’t hesitate moving forward at that price.</li><li>Have the humility to learn from the customer and how the market changes around you. </li></ul><p><strong>51:45 </strong>- How should founders be thinking about embedded finance and how does this market evolve over the next 5-10 years? </p><ul><li>When you build a new software system for your customer, the more connected the system is for your customer, the better it is. Embedded products enable you to do that quickly and in high quality.</li><li>Bring more solutions into your product that are driven by what your customer needs. Understand your customer’s day-to-day, and figure out how to build something that solves their entire flow instead of one segment.</li><li>If you are not making money on your product, you don’t know if there's a product market fit. If you can charge and retain a customer, then there is product market fit. </li></ul><p><strong>56:30</strong> - Outside of payroll, what are you seeing product wise offered by APIs? </p><ul><li>This space is brand new and there’s a ton of opportunity to create a product that helps customers go through the end-to-end journey successfully and solves multiple pain points – instead of the customer needing ten years of background to create a high-quality solution.</li></ul>","comment_id":"62fa7b87ab52db0001d3b656","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/08/BlogTwitter-Image-Template--5-.jpg","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2022-08-15T09:59:51.000-07:00","updated_at":"2022-08-15T11:48:12.000-07:00","published_at":"2022-08-15T11:32:19.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"Today, more than 200,000 businesses use Gusto for payroll, employee benefits, talent management, and more. 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This will be the first in-person hiring event we're hosting at YC in over two years, and we have 9 YC-backed startups who are looking to hire engineers and technical talent.</p><p>The event will feature brief founder & company overviews, time to network, and light food and drinks provided by YC. Spots are limited, so <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/events/meet-founders-sf/">apply now</a> to get on the list.</p><p>The companies attending <em>(and what they're hiring for)</em> below:</p><ul><li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/events/meet-founders-sf/onesignal/">OneSignal (Growth):</strong> Engage customers through personalized omni-channel messaging <em>(Infrastructure and Product Engineers, Product Managers)</em></li><li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/memora-health/">Memora Health</a> <strong>(Series A):</strong></strong> Helps healthcare organizations digitize and automate complex care workflows</li><li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/events/meet-founders-sf/seam/">Seam (Series A):</strong> API for IoT Devices <em>(Engineering & Sales)</em></li><li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/events/meet-founders-sf/slope/">Slope (Series A):</strong> Buy Now, Pay Later for B2B <em>(Backend & Full stack engineers; data; customer success)</em></li><li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/events/meet-founders-sf/fieldguide/">Fieldguide (Series A):</strong> Automation and collaboration software for audit and advisory firms<em> (ML Engineer, Product Manager)</em></li><li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/events/meet-founders-sf/agave/">Agave (Seed):</strong> Plaid for Construction <em>(Founding Engineer in PHP/Typescript/React)</em></li><li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/events/meet-founders-sf/mintlify/">Mintlify (Seed):</strong> Developer-first documentation that converts users <em>(Full Stack Engineer)</em></li><li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/events/meet-founders-sf/replo/">Replo (Seed):</strong> Visual development for React, starting with e-commerce <em>(Engineers & Designers)</em></li><li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/events/meet-founders-sf/oneshop/">OneShop (Seed):</strong> Operating system for reselling online <em>(Backend, Frontend and Growth Engineers)</em></li></ul><p>If you're an engineer interested in working at a fast-growing startup, this is an opportunity to meet founders and hiring managers in person to learn about their companies and products, understand their technology stacks and challenges, and get a sense of their culture and what it's like to work there.</p><p>This is a unique chance to engage with multiple companies at once, and to potentially find your next role at a leading tech startup. 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New YC video series: First Five
by Y Combinator7/13/2022
We launched a new video series called the First Five, where growth stage companies look back on their first five hires, customers, and launches.
Learn how successful founders determined when and who to hire, found and onboarded their first five customers, and decided what features to include in each launch.
In the first episode, YC Managing Director Anu Hariharan sits down with Tomer London, the co-founder and CPO of Gusto, to look back on the company’s first five hires.
You can watch it on Youtube now.
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Y Combinator