Why YC | Y Combinator

Why

Y Combinator?

We give our companies a disproportionate advantage.

4,000

funded startups

$600B

combined valuation

Top YC companies

We help foundersmake something people love and the results show.

We improve the success rate of our startups.

39%of YC companies raise a Series A
18%of YC companies are valued at$100M
6%of YC companies become a$1Bcompany

We help founders succeed regardless of their background when applying to YC.

54%of YC's $B companies had no revenue
52%of YC's $B companies were under 28 years of age
42%of YC's $B companies applied with only an idea

Our companies have a track record of becoming billion dollar companies.

YC has funded90+billion dollar companies
66%of those companies had YC as their first investor

We help founders double their company's valuation with little dilution.

The top10%of the batch raises$4Min funding at a$35M+valuation, diluting the founders9%

The truth about Y Combinator

YC is run by startup founders who have built exactly what they wanted when starting and growing a startup.

Dedicated group partners

Mentors who have collectively worked with hundreds of companies and started companies of their own. They can spot patterns of success and failure, and provide personalized advice in office hours, on Slack, and through documented institutional knowledge.

Software tools

Our software tools are designed to help our founders hire employees, get in front of early customers and investors, find people with relevant expertise, evaluate potential investors, and run and grow their startups. We are constantly building new software to help our founders.

Private social network

YC alumni have access to Bookface, our internal platform for connecting with thousands of the best founders in the world. The forum is home to the most pressing technical and business questions that are top-of-mind for founders today, the founder directory makes it easy to ask any alum for advice and intros, and the company directory makes it easy to find customers.

Exclusive deals

Once a company is accepted into YC, the founders have access to $1M between the YC standard deal and exclusive credits and discounts. YC invests $500,000 in every company on standard terms, and through our deals database, founders and their employees have access to more than $500,000 of discounts and exclusive offers on industry leading tools.

Investor network

The best investors in the world invest in YC companies, and we help make those connections. YC alumni also have access to our investor database with more than 50,000 entries, including reviews and data from every YC company, to ensure they feel confident adding an investor to their cap table.

YC’s secret handbook

YC alumni have access to our unpublished user manual based on nearly two decades of YC knowledge. This library of essential startup advice guides founders through every stage of their company.

Build your team

We help our founders hire employees, from first hires to VPs of product and operations, by surfacing their jobs to 150,000 candidates on YC’s job board.

Programs for life

YC is more than a three-month program. We host alumni-specific events, workshops, and conferences throughout the year.

We put founders' interests before our own.

We don’t take control of the board and company.

We don’t charge fees for our accelerator or anything else.

We don’t take a large ownership stake for little money.

We don’t require business plans and MBAs.

We don’t spend weeks in diligence or to decide to invest.

We don’t present priced rounds with complex legalese.

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