co-founder emojis

Y Combinator
Co‑Founder Matching

Where savvy founders go to meet potential co‑founders
We know even the best founders don't always have people in their network who are ready to start a company

That's why we built co-founder matching.

Good for all stages
Whether you're getting to know people for the future, or ready to go now.
Come with or without an idea
Don't have the right idea yet? This is a great place to find it.
Explore on your own terms
No commitment, no equity, no strings attached.
World-class founders are on co-founder matching
I built and managed the Visa platform that powers the Chase Sapphire Reserve.
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Vrinda
Haas
Visa
Scored a perfect 180 (99.99 percentile) on my LSAT and was on law review at Harvard Law School.
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Bryant
Harvard
Microsoft
Youngest engineer to be promoted to E7 (Senior Staff) at DoorDash.
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Saba
Berkeley
Doordash
Built Appetas, an instant website builders for SMBs. Acquired by Google in 2014.
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Curtis
MIT
Google
I managed the full teardown and rebuild of a rocket engine turbopump in a single day.
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Shreyas
UIUC
SpaceX
Worked on autonomous cars at XPENG, AR games at Snapchat, planning algorithms at Google X, and gesture recognition at Tesla.
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Daryl
Cornell
Tesla
The largest network of its kind — over 100K matches made

Active profiles in top cities

3,200
San Francisco
3,000
New York City
2,900
London
1,900
Bangalore
1,400
Los Angeles
1,200
Toronto
800
Berlin
700
Paris
700
Seattle
600
Singapore

We also run exclusive in-person co-founder matching meetups for founders in SF and NYC

Built with YC's expertise

We've distilled all of YC's knowledge about the make-up of successful founding teams into our matching engine — and into our confidential co-founder matching handbook.

From YC companies who met on co-founder matching
Without this we never would have met, done YC, or started this company.
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Curtis and Matthew
Whalesync
The YC Co-Founder Matching platform is a huge unfair advantage to filter for the exact people you're looking for and save time on the search. It's changing the game and enabling more people to start companies.
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Philip and Mathias
AccessOwl
Finding the right co-founder was always the biggest barrier preventing me from jumping in to start my own company. YC Co-Founder Matching felt like a cheat-code to solving that problem. Once we matched, we started working together every day and haven't stopped since. Couldn't be more grateful for Co-Founder Matching!
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Andrew and Shreya
Pledge Health
This was by far the most valuable tool I had access to when making the most important decision for my company. The quality and quantity of people who are serious about their venture and serious about looking for a co-founder was unmatched. We're extremely grateful to YC Co-Founder Matching for bringing our founding team together.
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Oliver and Royce
clearspace

How does it work?

1
Create a profile and tell us about yourself
2
Our matching engine shows you profiles that fit your preferences
3
If a profile piques your interest, invite them to connect
4
If they accept your invite, that's a match! Find a time to start the conversation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is this for?
Anyone who is looking for a co-founder. You can have an idea in mind or just be exploring. You can be already working full-time on a startup or just interested in doing one in the future.
Does YC take equity in return for using this? Are there strings attached?
No, co-founder matching is a completely free product.
I'm not sure if I want to start a startup yet, can I use co-founder matching to just meet people and see what happens?
Absolutely, co-founder matching is a great way to meet cool people in your city who are interested in startups.
Will my profile be public? Can my employer find me?
No, your profile is not public to the internet. Your profile is visible only to other people who have been approved for co-founder matching.