Y Combinator
| Y Combinator | |
| Company type | Limited liability company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Venture Capital |
| Founded | March, 2005 |
| Headquarters | Mountain View, CA |
| Products | Investments |
| Website | http://www.ycombinator.com/ |
Y Combinator is an American seed-stage startup funding firm, started in March 2005 by Paul Graham, Robert Morris, Trevor Blackwell, and Jessica Livingston. Y Combinator provides seed money, advice, and connections at two 3-month programs per year. In exchange, they take an average of about 6% of the company's equity.[1]
Compared to other startup funds, Y Combinator provides very little money ($17,000 for startups with 2 founders and $20,000 for those with 3 or more[2]). This reflects Graham's theory that between free software, dynamic languages, the web, and Moore's Law, the cost of founding a information technology startup has greatly decreased.[3]
David Lee, a partner at SV Angel, said the Y Combinator start-ups "are going to be some of the defining companies in technology." [4]
The firm is named after a construct in the theory of functional programming called the "Y combinator".[5]
History
Y Combinator was started after Graham gave a talk at his alma mater, Harvard (where he earned a PhD in Computer Science), which became, "How to Start a Startup".[6] He suggested founders seek seed funding from "angel investors", preferably those who had made money in technology. He half-jokingly added "but not me", but, feeling guilty,[7] he soon after organized Y Combinator to offer seed funding to startups.
From its inception to 2008, one program was held in each of the US cities of Cambridge, Massachusetts and Mountain View, California; in January 2009, Paul Graham announced that henceforth the Cambridge program would be closed and all future programs would take place in Silicon Valley.[8]
In 2009, Y Combinator partnered with Sequoia Capital and angel investors such as Ron Conway, Paul Buchheit and Aydin Senkut to further the support of the young startups with increased funding.[9]
Notable portfolio companies
As of January 2011, Y Combinator had funded over 200[10][11] startups. The number of startups funded in each cycle has been gradually increasing. The first cycle in summer 2005 had eight startups. In the summer 2010 cycle, there were 36.
Some of the better-known funded companies include: Scribd, reddit, Justin.tv, Dropbox, Disqus and Posterous.[2]
See also
References
- ^ "Running a Hatchery for Replicant Hackers". New York Times. 2006-02-21. Retrieved 2008-08-27.
- ^ a b "Y Combinator Frequently Asked Questions".
- ^ "Planning for a Crush of Startups". BusinessWeek. Retrieved 2008-08-27.
- ^ Pui-Wing Tam, & Amir Efrati. (2011, March 10). Web Start-Ups Get Upper Hand Over Investors --- VC Firms Drive Up Valuations, Attach Fewer Strings to Deals. Wall Street Journal (Eastern Edition), p. B.1. Retrieved March 24, 2011, from ABI/INFORM Global. (Document ID: 2287815741).
- ^ See Y Combinator FAQWhy did you choose the name "Y Combinator?" The Y combinator is one of the coolest ideas in computer science. It's also a metaphor for what we do. It's a program that runs programs; we're a company that helps start companies.
- ^ "How to Start a Startup". Paulgraham.com. 2005-10-21. Retrieved 2010-03-02.
- ^ Kessler, Michelle (2007-07-18). "Hungry entrepreneurs eat up Y Combinator's help". USA Today. Retrieved 2008-08-26.
- ^ "California Year-Round". Y Combinator. Retrieved 2009-01-29.
- ^ "Y Combinator Gets The Sequoia Capital Seal Of Approval". TechCrunch. 2009-05-16. Retrieved 2011-02-10.
- ^ "Y Combinator - What we do".
- ^ "Seed Stage Accelerator companies".
External links
- Company website
- Hacker News - Startup and Technology news site hosted by Y Combinator
- Search YC - An independent project to build a search utility for Y Combinator's Hacker News
- August 2008 podcast from Econtalk, featuring Paul Graham discussing Y Combinator
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