650 startups</a> in 2022 from over 40 countries and in just about every vertical you can imagine, from BtoB SaaS to web or app-based consumer services, to dev tools to educational technology, and more. Every company was offered our now standard deal of $500k. As we continue to live in troubled times, economic and otherwise, this amount of capital alone will usually be sufficient to tide thrifty startups over until better times.</p><p>As of today, there are <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/topcompanies/public/">16 public YC companies</a>, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/presto/">Presto and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/rigetti-computing/">Rigetti Computing</a> joined the club this year.  In March, Rigetti Computing (S14) went public. Rigetti is one of the earliest and most successful quantum computing platforms. In September, Presto (S10) also went public. Presto offers automation solutions to restaurants around the world. </p><p>Our <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/topcompanies/" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">top companies</a> list grew by over 150 companies in 2022. On that list, there are now 316 alumni valued at over $150M, and of those, 80 are valued at over $1B. Even after the pullback in public markets, the total value of YC companies is over $600B.</p><p>Several YC companies had significant exits via an acquisition. Here are highlights:</p><ul><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/the-athletic/">The Athletic</a> (S16) was acquired by The New York Times</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/codecademy/">Codecademy  (S11) was acquired by Skillsoft</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/lever/">Lever (S12) was acquired by Employ</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/bonfire/">Bonfire (W15) was acquired by GI Partners</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/nurx/">NURX (W16) was acquired by Thirty Madison</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/zenefits/">Zenefits (W13) was acquired by TriNet</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/cognito/">Cognito (S14) was acquired by Plaid</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/dharma-labs/">Dharma Labs</a> (S17) was acquired by OpenSea</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/pry-financials/">Pry Financials</a> (W21) was acquired by Brex</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/gobble/">Gobble (W14) was acquired by Intelligent Foods</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/phiar/">Phiar (S18) was acquired by Google</li></ul><p>Starting in 2015, YC began making follow-on investments in many YC companies as they scaled their businesses. In 2022 we made first-since-batch investments in <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/opensea/">OpenSea, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/convictional/">Convictional, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/salt-security/">Salt Security</a>, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/webflow/">Webflow, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/zip/">Zip, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/breadfast/">Breadfast, and others not yet announced. We also increased our investment in a number of terrific YC companies, including <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/faire/">Faire, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/vanta/">Vanta, and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/zepto/">Zepto.

Our programs, notably our batch program, underwent important changes in 2022. In March of 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we shifted our batch program from an in-person Mountain View program to an all-virtual program with YC founders remaining in their locales around the world. As the pandemic eased its grip this past summer, we instituted <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gxKhRSbK1s\%22>new ways</a> for the S22 batch to meet each other, YC alumni, YC group partners, and other YC employees. The batch kicked off with a retreat and each week there was a meetup in San Francisco. We will continue to evolve the program next year and create more in-person opportunities.</p><p>Other YC programs also improved in 2022. Our <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/announcing-startup-school-2022/">Startup School</a> course reinstituted live sessions and made major changes to our <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching/">co-founder matching</a> site. We also organized dozens of meetups around the world so founders could find other founders within their local communities.</p><p>Our <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.workatastartup.com//">Work at a Startup</a> site experienced impressive growth, with thousands of companies, thousands of jobs, and tens of thousands of applicants. The team ran hiring events all year long and also created a knowledge base on hiring — perfect for founders who are just getting their companies started.</p><p>And in June, YC launched a new product, called, not coincidentally, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/launches/">Launch YC</a>. Startups can launch publicly on the site as soon as they’re funded by YC, and to date over 300 companies have used it to announce new products. Launch YC is making it easier for investors, future employees, and potential customers to discover the next top YC companies.</p><p>Lastly, in September I announced that I would be handing over the reins at YC to my esteemed friend and former colleague, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/welcome-home-garry-tan/">Garry Tan</a>. Despite the economic headwinds of 2022, there has never been a better time to start a startup and my confidence in the YC platform has never been higher. Working with YC founders never ceases to inspire me and I will miss so much about working at YC. Above all, I will miss working with the brilliant, warm, friendly, and dedicated people who work here. </p><p>YC’s future is in terrific hands, and it has been my privilege to be part of such a special institution; one that I trust will last many decades into the future helping extraordinary founders make all sorts of things that all sorts of people want.</p>","comment_id":"63a0e594489b240001661537","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/12/BlogTwitter-Image-Template--10-.jpg","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2022-12-19T14:28:36.000-08:00","updated_at":"2022-12-20T10:28:13.000-08:00","published_at":"2022-12-20T08:59:00.000-08:00","custom_excerpt":"Over the past year, we've funded 650+ startups from 40+ countries, welcomed two new public companies, resumed in-person batch events, and so much more. YC's Geoff Ralston looks back at 2022 in our year in review — with an eye on the future.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71092","name":"Geoff Ralston","slug":"geoff-ralston","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/geoff.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Geoff Ralston is the former President of Y Combinator and has been with YC since 2011. 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Prior to YC, he built one of the first web mail services, RocketMail which became Yahoo Mail in 1997.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/geoff-ralston/"},"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/2022-yc-year-in-review/","excerpt":"Over the past year, we've funded 650+ startups from 40+ countries, welcomed two new public companies, resumed in-person batch events, and so much more. YC's Geoff Ralston looks back at 2022 in our year in review — with an eye on the future.","reading_time":3,"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":null,"feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"6308ee710539de0001b3c12d","uuid":"0e018105-ae74-47b0-bb76-a9b12cbecaca","title":"Welcome Home, Garry Tan","slug":"welcome-home-garry-tan","html":"<p>Dear YC Community,</p><p>Today we announced that I am stepping down from my role as YC’s President and CEO at the end of this year. I am leaving YC, but I’m not actually the retiring type and am looking forward to some to-be-discovered adventures. Although the time is right for me to leave and I’m sad to move on from YC, I am excited to announce that Garry Tan will be YC’s next President and CEO.</p><p>We have an amazing organization and it deserves a fantastic leader, so let me explain why I am so confident that YC will thrive under Garry’s leadership. All of us at YC know Garry well. He was a YC founder in the summer of 2008 and is both a terrific hacker and a brilliant designer. Garry is also one of the most trustworthy, kind, and likable people I know. </p><p>After earning a degree in computer engineering from Stanford, Garry was an engineer at Palantir and then created one of the earliest and best-designed blogging platforms, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/posterous/">Posterous. After selling Posterous to Twitter, Garry joined YC as a partner - almost exactly when I also joined PG, Jessica, and co. For the next five years we worked together advising startups. Garry also found the time to build some of the core internal software (including Bookface!) still used at YC. In 2015, Garry left YC to focus on Initialized Capital, the venture fund he co-founded. Over the years at Initialized, Garry showed his investing expertise and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://news.crunchbase.com/business/initialized-capital-garry-tan-seed-unicorn-investor-under-the-hood//">continued supporting</a> YC companies. He built a superb team there which will continue investing in great companies while Garry comes back home to YC.</p><p>Throughout his career, Garry has impressed everyone around him with his intelligence, his affability, and his desire to get things done or, as he might say, “let’s get building!” And while showing that he is a leader who understands the details of building and running a business, he also demonstrates his extraordinary communications skills, with hundreds of thousands of <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/c/GarryTan/">YouTube followers who watch his many videos on startups, jobs, and life. </p><p>My goal has been to cement YC as an institution that will endure for decades – not only through <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/building-for-the-future//">organizational changes</a> but by leading a team that has scaled the <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/scaling-yc/">community we bring together, the <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/about/">products and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/ycs-500-000-standard-deal/">capital we provide to startups, and the <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/yc-w21-remote-batch/">software we build. Garry, the visionary hacker, designer, and builder who has described how YC is “engraved on his heart” believes in this future and is precisely the right person to take over as YC’s chief executive.</p><p>The last decade and more have been transformative for me. There are so many amazing startups I have had the privilege of working with and watching make products people want. And I’ve learned so much from the brilliant people at YC. There are perhaps millions of people who can honestly say PG taught them everything important that they know about startups. I’m one of them. Thank you PG, Jessica, Robert, and Trevor for creating the platform built to help founders figure out how to make something people want. </p><p>Garry, you’re up! I can’t wait to watch you lead YC as we continue to fund amazing startups and help founders build the epic companies of the decades to come.</p>","comment_id":"6308ee710539de0001b3c12d","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/08/BlogTwitter-Image-Template--8-.jpg","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2022-08-26T09:01:53.000-07:00","updated_at":"2022-08-29T06:04:22.000-07:00","published_at":"2022-08-29T06:04:00.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"Today we're excited to announce that Garry Tan will be YC's next president and CEO. He is a visionary and builder — having founded the earliest blogging platform and advised hundreds of startups over the last decade.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71092","name":"Geoff Ralston","slug":"geoff-ralston","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/geoff.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Geoff Ralston is the former President of Y Combinator and has been with YC since 2011. 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Prior to YC, he built one of the first web mail services, RocketMail which became Yahoo Mail in 1997.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/geoff-ralston/"},"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/welcome-home-garry-tan/","excerpt":"Today we're excited to announce that Garry Tan will be YC's next president and CEO. He is a visionary and builder — having founded the earliest blogging platform and advised hundreds of startups over the last decade.","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":null,"feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"625dd04854a948000183a422","uuid":"1a799975-a685-4a25-99c7-bde6878dcf1a","title":"Tim Brady is leaving YC","slug":"tim-brady-is-leaving-yc","html":"<p><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/tim-brady-interview//">Tim Brady</a> and I go back a long way. Tim was already at Yahoo! when my company was acquired in 1997. Of course, Tim was there. In fact, he was Yahoo!’s first employee and ran a group called “production” until he eventually became Chief Product Officer. Tim was, in many ways, the conscience of Yahoo! He kept us focused on the customer experience in an era when it was too easy to toss that aside in a search for revenue. My connection to Tim and what he meant to Yahoo! grew when I succeeded him as CPO in 2002, as he left in search of new adventures.</p><p>And what adventures! Tim first studied history with an eye to perhaps earning a PhD and then teaching. Subsequently, he became an excellent chef by taking an intense course from San Francisco’s Tante Marie's cooking school, and then returned to his operator roots and took on the CEO role at QuestBridge, an educational non-profit helping connect low-income students with elite colleges around the country.</p><p>We stayed in contact over the years and when I began thinking of starting something in the educational technology space in 2010, it was natural for us to begin batting ideas around. When we started toying with the idea of an edtech version of Y Combinator we naturally checked in with our former Yahoo! colleague Paul Graham and he not only thought it was a great idea, he offered to help! That launched Tim and me on our amazing Imagine K12 adventure together where we funded over 80 great edtech companies over five years. </p><p>PG, in his seminal essay “<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html/">How to Start a Startup</a>”, said you should always look to find “animals” as your co-founders, and Tim is an animal in the best of all possible ways. He is the kind of guy who solves problems and gets things done. When we realized that the two of us were going to need to write a whole bunch of infrastructure software in order to support our new accelerator, Tim didn’t hesitate. He leapt in with PHP and MySQL and in short order, we were up and running. Together we ran Imagine K12, funded all the companies, and wrote all the code we needed to accept applications, create a community, and run Imagine K12. He never let a problem go unsolved, was always kind, optimistic, and super thoughtful. He was the best possible choice as a cofounder. Our time together at IK12 ranks as one of the highlights of my career, with memories of amazing companies, epic IK12 poker tournaments - which became a much-anticipated annual event - and memorable end-of-batch events where Tim would often cook up an amazing paella.</p><p>In 2016, when we merged with YC, Tim joined me as a YC Group Partner and scarcely missed a beat in helping many hundreds more companies grow and thrive. He has remained passionate about making the world a better place, by helping YC companies make things people want, and by being the main person who worked with the non-profits YC occasionally funds. His affability, his integrity, his positivity, and his deep commitment to adding value will be sorely missed. It has been my great, great pleasure to have Tim as a colleague and a friend, and wish him only the best in whatever adventures lie ahead in his, always epic, journey.</p>","comment_id":"625dd04854a948000183a422","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/04/2018-0313-YC-Event_104-1.jpg","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2022-04-18T13:55:36.000-07:00","updated_at":"2022-04-19T08:57:38.000-07:00","published_at":"2022-04-19T08:55:00.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"It has been our pleasure to have Tim as a colleague and a friend, and wish him only the best in whatever adventures lie ahead in his, always epic, journey.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71092","name":"Geoff Ralston","slug":"geoff-ralston","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/geoff.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Geoff Ralston is the former President of Y Combinator and has been with YC since 2011. Prior to YC, he built one of the first web mail services, RocketMail which became Yahoo Mail in 1997.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/geoff-ralston/"}],"tags":[{"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/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71160","name":"Partners","slug":"partners","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/partners/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71092","name":"Geoff Ralston","slug":"geoff-ralston","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/geoff.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Geoff Ralston is the former President of Y Combinator and has been with YC since 2011. Prior to YC, he built one of the first web mail services, RocketMail which became Yahoo Mail in 1997.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/geoff-ralston/"},"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/tim-brady-is-leaving-yc/","excerpt":"It has been our pleasure to have Tim as a colleague and a friend, and wish him only the best in whatever adventures lie ahead in his, always epic, journey.","reading_time":2,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/04/2018-0313-YC-Event_104-2.jpg","twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"622624439235bd0001dc9f95","uuid":"c0d9c460-e47e-44bb-a3a3-3c615a67ace2","title":"Congrats to Rigetti Computing (YC S14) on going public!","slug":"rigetti-goes-public","html":"<p>When you take a classical computer and break it down to its most fundamental components, it’s actually rather simple. It is a whole lot of switches (transistors built into the fabric of a semiconductor) organized to execute boolean algebraic computations. And those computations couldn’t be simpler - ANDing and ORing ones and zeros together in order to add, subtract, multiply, move data, etc.<br></p><p>Quantum computing, on the other hand, is far more complex and harder to understand. It was proposed as an idea in the latter part of the 20th century and the first quantum computers have only recently begun to be built. According to Wikipedia, “Quantum computing is a type of computation that harnesses the collective properties of quantum states, such as superposition, interference, and entanglement, to perform calculations.” As easy as it is to describe how a classical computer works, a quantum computer is a whole different story.<br></p><p>Experts in quantum computing are not numerous. Such an expert who is also a product-focused entrepreneur is rarer still. Thankfully, we were fortunate enough to run into Chad Rigetti.<br></p><figure class=\"kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption\"><img src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_7awrMeOk2_1zejJ1_XKgbhITCI7rBvTR6Ewrqcv1VhBZdHy7yEc_OsJIej5MW6pRaGvaYDZLqphv_71zLCuxpiePIxdlRVSNBfPWD7GY32VQ-dsEG1LrAO0pnd_osIk3wH5hx9V/" class=\"kg-image\" alt loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption>Chad Rigetti at YC Summer 2014 Demo Day</figcaption></figure><p>Chad was a leading expert in quantum computing. By the time he applied to YC, he had a PhD in Applied Physics, he’d authored over 30 scientific papers, and had built multiple world-record-breaking quantum memory devices. But what made Chad stand out was that he not only wanted to write papers and do research, he wanted to play a more active role in making the promise of quantum computing come to fruition. Chad had a resilience, a toughness about him that all great founders must have, but is all the more critical for founders who want to build hard tech on the cutting edge of what is known. <br></p><p>Through the force of his intellect and his will, Chad has brought his company all the way to the creation of an extraordinary device and to the public markets. Congratulations to Chad and to all of the folks at Rigetti who have worked so hard to get to this point. There’s a ton of quantum distance still to go, but no company and no team is better positioned to make that journey.</p>","comment_id":"622624439235bd0001dc9f95","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/03/FM24pLXXIAYZT1f-1.jpeg","featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2022-03-07T07:26:59.000-08:00","updated_at":"2022-03-09T10:04:34.000-08:00","published_at":"2022-03-09T09:59:14.000-08:00","custom_excerpt":"Congratulations to Chad and to all of the folks at Rigetti who have worked so hard to get to this point. There’s a ton of quantum distance still to go, but no company and no team is better positioned to make that journey.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71092","name":"Geoff Ralston","slug":"geoff-ralston","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/geoff.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Geoff Ralston is the former President of Y Combinator and has been with YC since 2011. Prior to YC, he built one of the first web mail services, RocketMail which became Yahoo Mail in 1997.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/geoff-ralston/"}],"tags":[{"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/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71152","name":"Founder Stories","slug":"founder-stories","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/founder-stories/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a711a5","name":"Application to IPO","slug":"application-to-ipo","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/application-to-ipo/"},{"id":"6227db501c7f270001e3c0ae","name":"#700","slug":"hash-700","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"internal","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/404/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71092","name":"Geoff Ralston","slug":"geoff-ralston","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/geoff.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Geoff Ralston is the former President of Y Combinator and has been with YC since 2011. Prior to YC, he built one of the first web mail services, RocketMail which became Yahoo Mail in 1997.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/geoff-ralston/"},"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/rigetti-goes-public/","excerpt":"Congratulations to Chad and to all of the folks at Rigetti who have worked so hard to get to this point. There’s a ton of quantum distance still to go, but no company and no team is better positioned to make that journey.","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":null,"feature_image_caption":"<strong>Image Credits: </strong>Nasdaq.com"},{"id":"622623e39235bd0001dc9f8a","uuid":"5642172c-f7d9-4f3d-a31f-6817c6a71978","title":"More Ways to Support Ukraine","slug":"supporting-ukraine","html":"<p>We have watched with the rest of the world in horror as the free and democratic country of Ukraine was invaded by Russia. YC has funded many founders from Ukraine and we want to send our support to all of them and, indeed, to all the people there fighting for their country and their freedom.<br></p><p>There are several YC companies that are actively participating in various efforts to bring aid to Ukraine and could use your help spreading the word:<br></p><ul><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://news.airbnb.com/help-ukraine//">Airbnb and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.flexport.org/donate/">Flexport are running a joint fundraiser to provide relief goods and shelter for refugees from the crisis in Ukraine. Donate <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.gofundme.com/f/stand-with-ukraine/">here.

Agency - Provides resources to help journalists covering the events in Ukraine who are concerned for their safety (online or in person). <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://twitter.com/ATarighat/status/1496923421288157187/">Get in touch for assistance</a>.</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http://www.charityvest.org//">Charityvest - Facilitates zero-fee donations of stocks, ETFs, and 160+ cryptocurrencies to 501(c)(3) charities, including those supporting Ukraine. </li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.openphone.com//">OpenPhone - The company is matching up to $20k of donations made to humanitarian organizations helping Ukrainians with food, medical supplies, etc. Anyone who has made a donation can upload their receipt <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://mailtrack.io/trace/link/776b0d073138d35ca2ea954fb0d15a4660499e8e?url=https%3A%2F%2Fopenphone.typeform.com%2Fsupportukraine&amp;userId=2104784&amp;signature=d2d086e95637689b\%22>here. More information <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.openphone.com/blog/stand-with-ukraine//">here.

People.ai - The company is running a <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/d1xgc2/">fundraiser to collect $35K for communications equipment for an entire military unit, one member of whom is a People.ai employee.<br></li></ul><p>We reached out to YC staff and alumni who are coming together to support the Ukrainians who are fighting on the ground or looking for safety, and they identified the following organizations that need ongoing support:<br></p><ul><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://supportukrainenow.org//">Support Ukraine Now</a></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ukranimals.org//">Ukranimals </li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://razomforukraine.org/donate//">Razom for Ukraine</a></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.1kproject.org/startups/">1k Project</a></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://novaukraine.org/donate//">Nova Ukraine</a></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.paypal.com/donate/?cmd=_s-xclick&amp;hosted_button_id=EECANTTJNHN7Y&amp;source=url\%22>Revived Soldiers Ukraine</a></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://helpukraine.center//">Help Ukraine</a></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://donate.redcrossredcrescent.org/ua/donate/~my-donation?_cv=1\%22>Ukrainian Red Cross</a></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://bank.gov.ua/en/news/all/natsionalniy-bank-vidkriv-spetsrahunok-dlya-zboru-koshtiv-na-potrebi-armiyi?fbclid=IwAR3al7MvSIM6O8JOBtKOPiqZS1EcSOw-GwtF5ntgYAhJ4kp72VpdbZj_zQU\%22>National Bank of Ukraine</a></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://armysos.com.ua/en/help-the-army/">ARMY SOS</a></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.paypal.com/donate/?cmd=_s-xclick&amp;hosted_button_id=FAXD9R7CFB4SJ\%22>United help Ukraine</a></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://ceoclub.com.ua/en/">CEO Club Ukraine</a></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://unchain.fund/?__cf_chl_tk=Ic29Xw_W0ZqLZxgOqS8wyA7j1CSjMhB92IvtAk2EZJA-1646851058-0-gaNycGzNCJE\%22>Unchain Fund</a></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://secure.givelively.org/donate/the-giving-back-fund-inc/save-ukraine-medical-kits-and-ready-to-eat-meals/">Save Ukraine</a></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://savelife.in.ua/en/donate//">Return Alive Foundation</a><br></li></ul><p>We wish the best for all Ukrainians and hope that efforts like these make a difference and perhaps even save lives. We encourage everyone who can help to do what they are able.</p>","comment_id":"622623e39235bd0001dc9f8a","feature_image":"https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1485286162995-aa63d31c06cb?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDZ8fHVrcmFpbmV8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQ2NjY2Nzc3&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2022-03-07T07:25:23.000-08:00","updated_at":"2022-06-09T09:16:34.000-07:00","published_at":"2022-03-08T10:30:06.000-08:00","custom_excerpt":"Join us and our alum in bringing aid to Ukraine and help spread the word.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71092","name":"Geoff Ralston","slug":"geoff-ralston","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/geoff.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Geoff Ralston is the former President of Y Combinator and has been with YC since 2011. Prior to YC, he built one of the first web mail services, RocketMail which became Yahoo Mail in 1997.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/geoff-ralston/"}],"tags":[{"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/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71092","name":"Geoff Ralston","slug":"geoff-ralston","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/geoff.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Geoff Ralston is the former President of Y Combinator and has been with YC since 2011. Prior to YC, he built one of the first web mail services, RocketMail which became Yahoo Mail in 1997.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/geoff-ralston/"},"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/supporting-ukraine/","excerpt":"Join us and our alum in bringing aid to Ukraine and help spread the word.","reading_time":1,"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":null,"feature_image_caption":"Photo by <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://unsplash.com/@tinahartung?utm_source=ghost&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=api-credit\%22>Tina Hartung</a> / <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=ghost&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=api-credit\%22>Unsplash%22},{%22id%22:%2261fe29f1c7139e0001a71c0a%22,%22uuid%22:%221de61bb8-4ca3-433a-bdd0-27aa55f4786b%22,%22title%22:%222021 — YC Year in Review","slug":"2021-yc-year-in-review","html":"<p>In June, I wrote a <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-is-crispr-for-startups//">blog post</a> comparing YC to CRISPR. When a founder is accepted into YC, we modify the startup’s DNA, edit it, to include key <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allele/">alleles that make success more likely. In the end, however, the secret to success of any startup lies squarely with the founders — their vision and their execution. We simply help those founders discover the very best versions of themselves.</p><p>In 2021, many YC founders led their companies to achieve outstanding results, and we are honored to be part of these companies’ history. This year presented an exceptional challenge to startups and established companies alike as the world struggled through a full year in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic. As we all stayed remote and worked to operate effectively without offices, the startup environment thrived. Seed funding grew 56 percent year over year and totaled $29.4 billion in 2021, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://news.crunchbase.com/news/global-vc-funding-unicorns-2021-monthly-recap//">per Crunchbase data</a>, with more than 17,000 startups around the world raising funding at seed.</p><p>Of course, YC itself remained remote during 2021, as did all of our programs. Like most of the world, there were ups and downs. Some of us fell ill, but thankfully none seriously. We believed towards the end of 2021 that the pandemic was entering an easier phase, only to be confronted, like everyone else, with Omicron. Despite this unique macro environment, there were many notable liquidity events for YC companies.</p><p>Prior to 2021 a total of four companies we funded had entered the public markets. In 2021 an extraordinary ten YC companies went public.</p><ul><li>In February, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/lucira-health/">Lucira Health</a> (W15), a company focused on the development and commercialization of infectious disease test kits, went public. Their COVID-19 test kit has received OTC authorization in the U.S. and Canada and has started aiding in testing programs that enable safe reopening.</li><li>In April, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/coinbase/">Coinbase (S12) went public. We <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://blog.ycombinator.com/coinbase-from-yc-to-ipo//">reminisced about our early impression of co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong, and reflected on the company’s excellent execution.</li><li>In July, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/matterport/">Matterport (W12), the spatial data company, went public. In one year, they more than doubled their subscriber count to 439,000 subscribers and have brought 6.2 million buildings and spaces online.</li><li>In August, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/momentus/">Momentus (S18), a space company that plans to offer transportation and other in-space infrastructure services, went public. Since then, they have completed the initial assembly and initial system-level functional testing of their Vigoride 3, which is designed to be capable of launching on most large, mid-sized, and small rockets.</li><li>In September, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/amplitude/">Amplitude (W12) went public. We <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://blog.ycombinator.com/amplitude-w12-is-going-public//">reflected on the founders’ going through multiple pivots before landing on the perfect idea for them: mobile analytics.</li><li>In September, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/ginkgo-bioworks/">Ginkgo Bioworks</a> (S14), the first biotech company YC funded, went public. We <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://blog.ycombinator.com/ginkgo-bioworks-s14-is-going-public-today//">told the story</a> of how Ginkgo Bioworks ended up in YC, and their journey as YC’s first biotech startup.</li><li>In October, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/gitlab/">GitLab (W15) was our first open-source company to IPO, as well as the first alum of the <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/growth-program/">Growth Program</a> to start trading publicly. We <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://blog.ycombinator.com/gitlab-from-yc-to-ipo//">shared details that show the team at GitLab embodies the open-source mindset, not just in technology, but in culture and spirit.</li><li>In November, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/weave/">Weave (W14) went public. We <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://blog.ycombinator.com/weave-w14-is-going-public//">spoke to the epic ups and downs that the founders pushed through — and ultimately, Weave became fundamental to how offices run.</li><li>In November, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/embark-trucks/">Embark Trucks</a> (W16) went public. We <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/embark-trucks/">reflected on the young team's passion, energy, and commitment, and how the initial idea shifted to focus on a different market.</li><li>In December, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/pardes-bio/">Pardes Biosciences</a> (S20), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing PBI-0451 as a novel direct-acting, oral antiviral drug candidate designed to treat SARS-CoV-2 infections, went public. PBI-0451 is currently in Phase I clinical study with early results showing potential for an unboosted oral regimen against COVID-19.</li></ul><p>Also, in 2021 there were a number of companies that had significant exits via an acquisition. Here are highlights:</p><ul><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/sendwave/">Sendwave (W12) was acquired by WorldRemit.<br></li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/clever/">Clever (S12) was acquired by Kahoot!.</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/caper/">Caper (W16) was acquired by <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/instacart/">Instacart (S12).</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/sqreen/">Sqreen (W18) was acquired by Datadog.</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/bear-flag-robotics/">Bear Flag Robotics</a> (W18) was acquired by John Deere.</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/openinvest/">OpenInvest (S15) was acquired by JPMorgan Chase.</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/modern-fertility/">Modern Fertility</a> (S17) was acquired by Roman Health Ventures.</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/paystack/">Paystack (W16) was acquired by <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/stripe/">Stripe (S09).</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/drchrono/">DrChrono (W11) was acquired by EverCommerce.</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/chargehound/">Chargehound (W14) was acquired by PayPal.</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/truebill/">Truebill (W16) was acquired by Rocket Companies.</li></ul><p>Our batch program funded 750 companies in 2021 — the most ever in a year. The YC admissions team sifted through tens of thousands of applications and the selection team, including all of our Group Partners, reviewed thousands of apps until our eyes blurred. And then we sat for thousands of virtual interviews for each batch. In the end, we funded 350 companies in the <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://blog.ycombinator.com/w21-batch-stats//">Winter 2021 batch</a> and 402 companies in the <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-summer-2021-batch-stats//">Summer 2021 batch</a>. Demo Day for both batches remained completely virtual of course, but it was remarkably successful as more than 3,000 investors attended and YC companies raised record amounts of seed funding.</p><p><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/continuity//">YC’s Continuity</a> funds are now maturing. We launched the first YCC fund over six years ago and in 2021, YC participated in the funding of several of our most successful companies.</p><ul><li>Coinbase and Gitlab, key investments in YCC’s portfolio, went public in 2021.</li><li>11 YC companies were added to the YCC portfolio, including <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/deel/">Deel, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/fivetran/">Fivetran, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/opensea/">OpenSea, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/pave-2/">Pave, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/posthog/">Posthog, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/razorpay/">Razorpay, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/revenuecat/">RevenueCat, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/vanta/">Vanta, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/whatnot/">Whatnot, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/kiranakart/">Zepto, and one not yet announced.</li><li>We increased our investments in top companies like <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/brex/">Brex, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/faire/">Faire, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/groww/">Groww, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/lob/">Lob, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/podium/">Podium, and others.</li></ul><p>Valuations of YC companies have <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/topcompanies//">continued to soar</a> and today 150 companies are valued at $150 million or more and 60 companies are valued at $1 billion or more.</p><p>I would be remiss not to mention that YC wouldn’t function without the people that make up this organization. At YC, we are founders, operators, and experts; we’re building the programs that we wished we had as founders and working as experts and operators alongside our companies. We are growing our team to support these programs, and in 2021, we welcomed 30 people to YC. Key additions in our software, legal, and finance teams helped those teams scale to meet the needs of an ever expanding number of founders, companies, and deals to manage. And in 2021 our Outreach team helped launch hundreds of companies and organized dozens of YC events at schools around the world.</p><p>A few program highlights:</p><ul><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.startupschool.org//">Startup School</a>, our free online program and community to help aspiring founders learn about startups, build a product, and track growth, signed up over 100,000 founders and aspiring founders and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://blog.ycombinator.com/co-founder-matching//">launched co-founder matching</a>, which led to <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://blog.ycombinator.com/does-co-founder-matching-work//">new YC companies</a>.</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.workatastartup.com//">Work at a Startup</a>, our platform for candidates to apply to top YC startups with a single profile, helped 600 people find jobs and ran six hiring events, including our first <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.workatastartup.com/events/2021-office-hours-women-founders/">Women in Engineering</a> series and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.workatastartup.com/events/crypto-tech-talks-2021/">Crypto Tech Talks</a>.</li><li>The Series A Program, our program that prepares YC founders for raising their Series A, helped nearly 200 YC companies raise $3.5B+ from more than 150 investors, like Accel, A16Z, Benchmark, Coatue, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, Khosla Ventures, Ribbit, Sequoia, Tiger Global, and more.</li><li>The Post-A Program, our program that teaches best practices for managing this stage company, and the <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/growth-program/">Growth Program</a>, our program and community for CEOs of YC’s fastest-growing companies, nearly doubled the number of companies served compared to 2020.</li></ul><p>If you made it this far, well I am impressed. Thank you! I’ll just end here by pointing out that, like our companies, Y Combinator is always evolving and never stagnant. We have big plans for 2022 and will continue to iterate to provide the best founders in the world with the best programs and tools to improve their chances of outsize success.</p>","comment_id":"61f5fb42eb74f90001a957a4","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/01/BlogTwitter-Image-Template-17.png","featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2022-01-29T18:43:14.000-08:00","updated_at":"2022-03-01T10:11:49.000-08:00","published_at":"2022-01-19T09:00:00.000-08:00","custom_excerpt":"In 2021, many YC founders led their companies to achieve outstanding results, and we are honored to be part of these companies’ history.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71092","name":"Geoff Ralston","slug":"geoff-ralston","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/geoff.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Geoff Ralston is the former President of Y Combinator and has been with YC since 2011. Prior to YC, he built one of the first web mail services, RocketMail which became Yahoo Mail in 1997.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/geoff-ralston/"}],"tags":[{"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/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71170","name":"Startups","slug":"startups","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/startups/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7116d","name":"Essay","slug":"essay","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/essay/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7117a","name":"Batch Stats","slug":"batch-stats","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/batch-stats/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71092","name":"Geoff Ralston","slug":"geoff-ralston","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/geoff.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Geoff Ralston is the former President of Y Combinator and has been with YC since 2011. Prior to YC, he built one of the first web mail services, RocketMail which became Yahoo Mail in 1997.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/geoff-ralston/"},"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/2021-yc-year-in-review/","excerpt":"In 2021, many YC founders led their companies to achieve outstanding results, and we are honored to be part of these companies’ history.","reading_time":5,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/01/BlogTwitter-Image-Template-17-1.png","twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"61fe29f1c7139e0001a71c06","uuid":"e5a2f4be-705a-4416-b4e6-5949dbee91fc","title":"YC’s $500,000 Standard Deal","slug":"ycs-500-000-standard-deal","html":"<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><p>We have a new <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/deal/">standard deal</a> at Y Combinator. When a company is accepted into the YC batch program, we now invest a total of $500,000. We still invest $125,000 for 7% and now also invest an additional $375,000 on an uncapped safe with an MFN <sup class=\"footnote-ref\"><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#fn1\" id=\"fnref1\">[1]</a></sup>.</p>\n<p>This is the type of deal that we have wanted to offer YC founders for years — and with the recent success of YC companies, including ten IPOs in 2021 and more to come this year, we are now able to do so. This sum will enable founders to focus on launching, building, and scaling their company. It will remove the immediate pressure to fundraise and accept less than favorable terms.</p>\n<p>Incidentally, we also hope that this deal will encourage more founders of any age and from every demographic group and geographic location to take the leap into the startup world, apply to YC, and build their own successful startup.</p>\n<p><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/author/dalton-caldwell/">Dalton Caldwell</a>, YC’s Managing Director, Architect, and long-term Group Partner, who first suggested that now was the right time to make this change, also pointed out that if founders stay lean, this is more than enough capital to survive for years, regardless of the economic environment.</p>\n<p>Our <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/principles/">founding principles</a> state that YC’s value is “the number of startups we help times how much we help them.” More startups in the world is a good thing — and for the founders of those startups, we’re always iterating to improve our program. This terrific deal will make it even more likely that they find product market fit, raise a successful seed round, and build a world-changing technology company.</p>\n<p>We are now accepting applications from startups for the Winter 2023 funding cycle. The deadline to apply is <strong>Monday, September 12th at 8:00pm PT</strong>.</p>\n<center>\n<a class=\"ycdc-retro-btn ycdc-retro-btn-gold mt-[-10px] ml-[13px]\" href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://ycombinator.com/apply/" style=\"text-decoration: none;\" title=\"Apply to Y Combinator Winter 2023\" target=\"_blank\">Apply Now</a>\n</center><hr class=\"footnotes-sep\">\n<section class=\"footnotes\">\n<ol class=\"footnotes-list\">\n<li id=\"fn1\" class=\"footnote-item\"><p>The $375,000 is on an uncapped safe with “Most Favored Nation” (MFN) terms. MFN means that this safe will take on the terms of the lowest cap safe (or other most favorable terms) that is issued between the start of the batch and the next equity round. Simply put, we’re giving the company money now but at terms you’ll negotiate with future investors. <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":"61e645b2144a7c0001fe1572","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/01/standard-deal.png","featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2022-01-17T20:44:34.000-08:00","updated_at":"2022-09-12T07:13:33.000-07:00","published_at":"2022-01-10T20:44:00.000-08:00","custom_excerpt":"We have a new standard deal at Y Combinator. When a company is accepted into the YC batch program, we now invest a total of $500,000. We still invest $125,000 for 7% and now also invest an additional $375,000 on an uncapped safe with an MFN.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71092","name":"Geoff Ralston","slug":"geoff-ralston","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/geoff.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Geoff Ralston is the former President of Y Combinator and has been with YC since 2011. Prior to YC, he built one of the first web mail services, RocketMail which became Yahoo Mail in 1997.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/geoff-ralston/"}],"tags":[{"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/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71092","name":"Geoff Ralston","slug":"geoff-ralston","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/geoff.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Geoff Ralston is the former President of Y Combinator and has been with YC since 2011. Prior to YC, he built one of the first web mail services, RocketMail which became Yahoo Mail in 1997.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/geoff-ralston/"},"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/ycs-500-000-standard-deal/","excerpt":"We have a new standard deal at Y Combinator. When a company is accepted into the YC batch program, we now invest a total of $500,000. We still invest $125,000 for 7% and now also invest an additional $375,000 on an uncapped safe with an MFN.","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":null,"feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"61fe29f1c7139e0001a71c02","uuid":"f4b98726-51ba-454a-801d-b5865de5b235","title":"Weave (YC W14) is Going Public","slug":"weave-w14-is-going-public","html":"<p>Today, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.getweave.com//">Weave, which was part of YC’s W14 batch, is going public. The founders of Weave, brothers Brandon and Jared Rodman and their good friend Clint Berry didn’t, in all honesty, impress me when I read their YC application. They seemed like nice guys who had just happened upon a sort of reasonable idea. I was wrong, and luckily we chose to invite them in for an interview. In that interview, their focus and determination were apparent. Their solution was built and worked, and their business was thriving. We were thrilled to fund them, and I quickly became their biggest fan.</p><figure class=\"kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption\"><img src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/03/weave.jpg/" class=\"kg-image\" alt loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1200\" srcset=\"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/size/w600/2022/03/weave.jpg 600w, https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/size/w1000/2022/03/weave.jpg 1000w, https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/03/weave.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 720px) 720px\"><figcaption>Brandon and Jared in Mountain View for their YC Interview</figcaption></figure><p>The ultimate story of Weave will best be told by Brandon, Jared, and Clint, but it is safe to say that it has been one with epic ups and downs. Even before the batch started there was cleanup to do as the original company organization was a complicated LLC which needed unwinding. And there was a cash crunch right away that needed resolution before the guys got on the road to a successful Demo Day. The good news for Weave, is that the founders had actually built something their customers wanted. The Weave solution, once integrated into an office, became fundamental to how that office ran – thus, their churn stayed low and customer satisfaction high.</p><figure class=\"kg-card kg-embed-card\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/embed/rpyvQJGcQGw/" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"></iframe></figure><p>When Weave applied to YC, they supplied dentists with an all-in-one customer communications and management system. But their vision was always a larger one. They recognized that the Weave solution fit the bill for many other small health-related offices. I think, at least partially, the magnitude of this larger opportunity helped carry the team through the inevitable ups and downs of a high-growth business. There would be future cash crunches to manage, crises major and minor to overcome, and a business to expand. They kept at it, kept growing and the powerhouse company that is Weave Communications emerged.</p><p>Today, the company still supports dental offices, but also optometrists, vets, and other medical offices with similar capabilities. Tens of thousands of professional offices around the United States and Canada run their businesses using Weave.</p><p>The very best founders refuse to give up; refuse to let their company die; refuse to lose belief in their product and their vision. Brandon, Jared, and Clint worked incredibly hard, stayed the course and, as a result, Weave has become an extraordinary success. We at YC could not be happier for them and the entire team at Weave. Congrats to Brandon, Jared, Clint and everyone else at team Weave for today’s important milestone.</p>","comment_id":"61a50515cf1ec1000121a560","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2021/11/image-1024x683.jpg","featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2021-11-29T08:51:33.000-08:00","updated_at":"2022-03-08T15:00:34.000-08:00","published_at":"2021-11-11T08:53:00.000-08:00","custom_excerpt":"Today, Weave, which was part of YC’s W14 batch, is going public. Brandon, Jared, and Clint worked incredibly hard, stayed the course and, as a result, Weave has become an extraordinary success.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71092","name":"Geoff Ralston","slug":"geoff-ralston","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/geoff.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Geoff Ralston is the former President of Y Combinator and has been with YC since 2011. Prior to YC, he built one of the first web mail services, RocketMail which became Yahoo Mail in 1997.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/geoff-ralston/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a711a6","name":"#630","slug":"hash-630","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"internal","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/404/"},{"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/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a711a5","name":"Application to IPO","slug":"application-to-ipo","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/application-to-ipo/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71152","name":"Founder Stories","slug":"founder-stories","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/founder-stories/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71092","name":"Geoff Ralston","slug":"geoff-ralston","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/geoff.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Geoff Ralston is the former President of Y Combinator and has been with YC since 2011. Prior to YC, he built one of the first web mail services, RocketMail which became Yahoo Mail in 1997.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/geoff-ralston/"},"primary_tag":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/weave-w14-is-going-public/","excerpt":"Today, Weave, which was part of YC’s W14 batch, is going public. Brandon, Jared, and Clint worked incredibly hard, stayed the course and, as a result, Weave has become an extraordinary success.","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":null,"feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"61fe29f1c7139e0001a71c01","uuid":"d3f24dfb-03a9-43d1-864c-76acae7ab0ec","title":"Embark Trucks’ (W16) Road to IPO","slug":"embark-trucks-road-to-ipo","html":"<figure class=\"kg-card kg-embed-card\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/embed/LzIA3pH7lIg/" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"></iframe></figure><p>Today, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://embarktrucks.com//">Embark Trucks</a>, once a startup in YC’s W16 batch, is going public. I remember interviewing Alex, Brandon and their former co-founder Michael in late 2015. Whenever we see such young teams – they were each 19 or 20 years old at the time – we have to wonder if they are actually ready to start a startup. Often, this sort of application simply represents undergrads playing games and is not a serious stab at company creation. In this case, we wondered if Alex et. al. were merely playing with golf carts and having a good time while never planning to leave school.</p><p>But almost everything about this team allayed that concern. Their thinking was startlingly clear and robust. Their answers were direct and to the point. They had a plan and were serious and, by the way, they’d already built the first self-driving vehicle in Canada. We were sold. This was a team of builders that was passionate, energetic, and committed. Those qualities make age irrelevant.</p><figure class=\"kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption\"><img src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://blog.ycombinator.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/unnamed-2.jpeg/" class=\"kg-image\" alt loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption>Embark Trucks (formerly Varden Labs) Team Photo in 2016</figcaption></figure><p>The team from Varden Labs – that was Embark’s original company name – came into YC intending to build self-driving shuttles for use on campuses where the roads and pathways were far more controlled and speed could be far lower than out in the wide-world. This was a key insight for the team: that the first self-driving vehicles would be delivered in a highly constrained environment because the unconstrained problem was, frankly, too difficult. We know today all too well how spot-on they were.</p><figure class=\"kg-card kg-embed-card\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/embed/8MdVFF5HU0g/" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"></iframe></figure><p>As their time in the batch progressed, they found, somewhat to their dismay, that not only was their chosen domain, i.e. campuses, not as constrained as they had hoped, it also turned out that various campuses had such different environments that each posed it’s own, unique set of challenges. As the initial excitement around their chosen market diminished, temptations to pivot began to show up. A mining company in Australia wondered if the team could create self-driving mining trucks in mining’s own, highly constrained environment. The team was tempted to switch ideas, but, in one of the early, impressively focused decisions, they chose to stay the course, show that they could sign up campuses and grow. They continued to sign up customers, had a very successful Demo Day and raised the early funds they needed to build the initial version of the company that would emerge as Embark.</p><p>Despite this early success with their original idea, eventually Alex and Brandon became persuaded that the campus market was not the right place to start. On the other hand, they believed that self-driving trucks, constrained to highways, was an enormous market and although still fabulously difficult, a more tractable problem. So they did pivot, successfully persuading their investors to keep on riding shotgun with them. And, as always with this team, they got right down to building and in short-time had put together their first self-driving truck.</p><p>I’ve stayed in close touch with Alex and Brandon over the years and their energy, their optimism, and, above all, the clarity of their thinking has never ceased to impress me. Now, they have shown they can build a company. Today’s milestone is but one step on what I’m sure will continue to be an exciting road for us all to follow. Congrats to Alex, Brandon and the entire Embark team.</p>","comment_id":"61a504a2cf1ec1000121a54f","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2021/12/unnamed-2.jpeg","featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2021-11-29T08:49:38.000-08:00","updated_at":"2022-01-17T21:36:45.000-08:00","published_at":"2021-11-11T08:51:00.000-08:00","custom_excerpt":"Today, Embark Trucks, once a startup in YC’s W16 batch, is going public. Congrats to Alex, Brandon and the entire Embark team.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71092","name":"Geoff Ralston","slug":"geoff-ralston","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/geoff.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Geoff Ralston is the former President of Y Combinator and has been with YC since 2011. Prior to YC, he built one of the first web mail services, RocketMail which became Yahoo Mail in 1997.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/geoff-ralston/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a711a4","name":"#982","slug":"hash-982","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"internal","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/404/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71152","name":"Founder Stories","slug":"founder-stories","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/founder-stories/"},{"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/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a711a5","name":"Application to IPO","slug":"application-to-ipo","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/application-to-ipo/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71092","name":"Geoff Ralston","slug":"geoff-ralston","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/geoff.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Geoff Ralston is the former President of Y Combinator and has been with YC since 2011. Prior to YC, he built one of the first web mail services, RocketMail which became Yahoo Mail in 1997.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/geoff-ralston/"},"primary_tag":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/embark-trucks-road-to-ipo/","excerpt":"Today, Embark Trucks, once a startup in YC’s W16 batch, is going public. Congrats to Alex, Brandon and the entire Embark team.","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":null,"feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"61fe29f1c7139e0001a71bfb","uuid":"a7b8080d-dd17-4a9f-bff2-cfd013ca6a52","title":"Amplitude (W12) is going public","slug":"amplitude-w12-is-going-public","html":"<!--kg-card-begin: html--><p>Today, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/amplitude/">Amplitude, which was part of YC’s W12 batch, is going public. Their story of grit, determination, and creativity, is an epic one.</p>\n<p>Spenser and Curtis first applied to YC in 2011, but their idea, a new version of Mechanical Turk, did not impress YC’s reviewers at the time, and although they were clearly brilliant hackers, that first application was rejected.</p>\n<p>It is always a good sign when founders come back and, indeed, they came up with a new idea and applied for the Winter 2012 batch. Their company “Sonalight”, was accepted to YC W12, despite what Spenser remembers as PG’s skepticism that the technology and market were ready for the product they intended to build.</p>\n<p><div id=\"attachment_1104944\" style=\"width: 350px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1104944\" loading=\"lazy\" src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/wordpress/2021/09/2011-03-22-Spenser-Curtis-at-SFO.jpg/" alt=\"Amplitude founders\" width=\"340\" height=\"299\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1104944\" srcset=\"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/wordpress/2021/09/2011-03-22-Spenser-Curtis-at-SFO.jpg 340w, https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/wordpress/2021/09/2011-03-22-Spenser-Curtis-at-SFO-300x264.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 340px) 100vw, 340px\" /><p id=\"caption-attachment-1104944\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Amplitude founders Spenser Skates and Curtis Liu &#8211; March 2011<br /></p></div></p>\n<p>Their new idea was intended to make it safe to text while driving by converting text to speech. This wasn’t nearly so common or easy back then, and despite PG’s skepticism, it was clear to us that this was a team focused on building products that customers actually wanted and needed. They successfully built the software, but had a hard time finding paying customers. It turns out that although this is a good idea (many of us use something of the sort today), PG’s insight had been right-on and at the time, it wasn’t a great business. Spenser and Curtis figured this out rapidly and by the spring of 2012 they were searching once again for the right product to build.</p>\n<p>I remember having office hours with Spenser and Curtis at the time, and they were considering a product in the education space, which naturally I loved and encouraged. But, in fact, they rather quickly settled on a different problem space that they understood deeply and which immediately resonated with their batchmates. It was also a problem for which the market had not yet, in Spenser and Curtis’s opinion, come up with a great solution. Their chosen target was, of course, mobile analytics. This, it turned out, was precisely the right idea for the team. Around this time, Jeffrey Wang, a Stanford computer scientist and top-quality hacker, joined Spenser and Curtis as co-founder.</p>\n<p><div id=\"attachment_1104946\" style=\"width: 970px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1104946\" loading=\"lazy\" src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/wordpress/2021/09/2014-09-Stanford-Fall-Career-Fair-Spenser-Jeffrey.jpg/" alt=\"Amplitude Founders\" width=\"960\" height=\"720\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1104946\" srcset=\"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/wordpress/2021/09/2014-09-Stanford-Fall-Career-Fair-Spenser-Jeffrey.jpg 960w, https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/wordpress/2021/09/2014-09-Stanford-Fall-Career-Fair-Spenser-Jeffrey-300x225.jpg 300w, https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/wordpress/2021/09/2014-09-Stanford-Fall-Career-Fair-Spenser-Jeffrey-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" /><p id=\"caption-attachment-1104946\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Amplitude founders Spenser Skates and and Jeffrey Wang &#8211; September 2014</p></div></p>\n<p>When an excellent team turns to a new problem, you see results unbelievably quickly. In just a few months, they were ready to launch.</p>\n<p><div id=\"attachment_1104949\" style=\"width: 2058px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1104949\" loading=\"lazy\" src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/wordpress/2021/09/414321_3174631928052_1824851596_o.jpeg/" alt=\"Amplitude Dashboard\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1224\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1104949\" srcset=\"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/wordpress/2021/09/414321_3174631928052_1824851596_o.jpeg 2048w, https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/wordpress/2021/09/414321_3174631928052_1824851596_o-300x179.jpeg 300w, https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/wordpress/2021/09/414321_3174631928052_1824851596_o-1024x612.jpeg 1024w, https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/wordpress/2021/09/414321_3174631928052_1824851596_o-768x459.jpeg 768w, https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/wordpress/2021/09/414321_3174631928052_1824851596_o-1536x918.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\" /><p id=\"caption-attachment-1104949\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The monitor on the wall had Amplitude&#8217;s analytics dashboard on it, and it was on 24/7.<br /></p></div></p>\n<p>One thing no one could ever doubt about the Amplitude founders was their ability to build: they are really strong hackers. And once they had a product, they almost immediately had customers. This was a really good sign. Within a couple of months, everyone’s confidence was soaring. We all, including PG, believed in the team and the idea, and it was pretty obvious they were onto something real.</p>\n<p>A year later, Amplitude had real revenue, was tracking billions of events per month, and the epic company they have become was taking shape.</p>\n<p><div id=\"attachment_1104947\" style=\"width: 1290px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1104947\" loading=\"lazy\" src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/wordpress/2021/09/2015-02-08-22.25.48.jpg/" alt=\"Amplitude team - 2015\" width=\"1280\" height=\"960\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1104947\" srcset=\"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/wordpress/2021/09/2015-02-08-22.25.48.jpg 1280w, https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/wordpress/2021/09/2015-02-08-22.25.48-300x225.jpg 300w, https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/wordpress/2021/09/2015-02-08-22.25.48-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/wordpress/2021/09/2015-02-08-22.25.48-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\" /><p id=\"caption-attachment-1104947\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Amplitude team &#8211; February 2015</p></div></p>\n<p>Over the subsequent years, the team was met with lots of skepticism about the size of their opportunity, but at every stage, they simply put their heads down, built fantastic software and products, and grew. They stayed close to YC, even sharing an office with our own Michael Seibel, who was running SocialCam at the time. In the end, Amplitude managed to dominate their market and today’s public offering is a huge testament to the fearlessness and smarts which stood out nearly ten years ago. Our heartfelt congratulations to Spenser, Curtis, Jeffrey and everyone at Amplitude.</p>\n<!--kg-card-end: html-->","comment_id":"1104942","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2021/10/Amplitude_shorthand_color.png","featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2021-09-28T02:15:33.000-07:00","updated_at":"2022-03-08T14:53:26.000-08:00","published_at":"2021-09-28T02:15:33.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71092","name":"Geoff Ralston","slug":"geoff-ralston","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/geoff.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Geoff Ralston is the former President of Y Combinator and has been with YC since 2011. Prior to YC, he built one of the first web mail services, RocketMail which became Yahoo Mail in 1997.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/geoff-ralston/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71152","name":"Founder Stories","slug":"founder-stories","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/founder-stories/"},{"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/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7119a","name":"#40","slug":"hash-40","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"internal","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/404/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a711a5","name":"Application to IPO","slug":"application-to-ipo","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/application-to-ipo/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71092","name":"Geoff Ralston","slug":"geoff-ralston","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/geoff.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Geoff Ralston is the former President of Y Combinator and has been with YC since 2011. 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Recent Posts By Geoff Ralston

2022 YC Year in Review

Over the past year, we've funded 650+ startups from 40+ countries, welcomed two new public companies, resumed in-person batch events, and so much more. YC's Geoff Ralston looks back at 2022 in our year in review — with an eye on the future.

YC News

Geoff Ralston

Geoff Ralston

12/20/2022

Welcome Home, Garry Tan

Today we're excited to announce that Garry Tan will be YC's next president and CEO. He is a visionary and builder — having founded the earliest blogging platform and advised hundreds of startups over the last decade.

YC News

Geoff Ralston

Geoff Ralston

8/29/2022

Tim Brady is leaving YC

It has been our pleasure to have Tim as a colleague and a friend, and wish him only the best in whatever adventures lie ahead in his, always epic, journey.

YC NewsPartners

Geoff Ralston

Geoff Ralston

4/19/2022

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Congrats to Rigetti Computing (YC S14) on going public!

by Geoff Ralston3/9/2022

Congratulations to Chad and to all of the folks at Rigetti who have worked so hard to get to this point. There’s a ton of quantum distance still to go, but no company and no team is better positioned to make that journey.

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More Ways to Support Ukraine

by Geoff Ralston3/8/2022

Join us and our alum in bringing aid to Ukraine and help spread the word.

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2021 — YC Year in Review

by Geoff Ralston1/19/2022

In 2021, many YC founders led their companies to achieve outstanding results, and we are honored to be part of these companies’ history.

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YC’s $500,000 Standard Deal

by Geoff Ralston1/11/2022

We have a new standard deal at Y Combinator. When a company is accepted into the YC batch program, we now invest a total of $500,000. We still invest $125,000 for 7% and now also invest an additional $375,000 on an uncapped safe with an MFN.

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Weave (YC W14) is Going Public

by Geoff Ralston11/11/2021

Today, Weave, which was part of YC’s W14 batch, is going public. Brandon, Jared, and Clint worked incredibly hard, stayed the course and, as a result, Weave has become an extraordinary success.

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Embark Trucks’ (W16) Road to IPO

by Geoff Ralston11/11/2021

Today, Embark Trucks, once a startup in YC’s W16 batch, is going public. Congrats to Alex, Brandon and the entire Embark team.

Read More

Amplitude (W12) is going public

by Geoff Ralston9/28/2021

Today, Amplitude , which waspart of YC’s W12 batch, is going public. Their story of grit, determination, andcreativity, is an epic one.Spenser and Curtis first applied to YC in 2011, but their idea, a new version ofMechanical Turk, did not impress YC’s reviewers at the time, and although theywere clearly brilliant hackers, that first application was rejected.

Read More

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