Y Combinator is an American technology startup accelerator founded in 2005 by Paul Graham, Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris, and Trevor Blackwell. It is headquartered in Mountain View, California and has funded over 3,000 companies. The accelerator program provides seed money, advice, and connections to startup companies in exchange for small amounts of equity. It has helped launch many successful companies including Reddit, Dropbox, Airbnb, Stripe, and more.

1. Y Combinator
Management, LLC
Type Limited liability
company
Industry Startup accelerator
Founded March 2005
Founders Paul Graham,
Jessica Livingston,
Robert Morris,
Trevor Blackwell
Headquarters Mountain View,
California, United
States
Number of
locations
2 offices (2014)
Products Venture capital,
Investments
Website ycombinator.com
(http://ycombinator.
com)
Y Combinator
Y Combinator (YC) is an American technology startup
accelerator launched in March 2005.[1] It has been used to launch
more than 3,000 companies,[2] including Stripe, Airbnb, Cruise,
PagerDuty, DoorDash, Coinbase, Instacart, Dropbox, Twitch,
Flightfox, and Reddit.[3] The combined valuation of the top YC
companies was more than $300 billion by January 2021.[4] The
company's accelerator program started in Boston and Mountain
View, relocated to San Francisco in 2019, and has been entirely
online since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.[5] Forbes
characterized the company in 2012 as one of the most successful
startup accelerators in Silicon Valley.[6]
History
Programs
People
Controversies
YC Research
See also
References
External links
Y Combinator was founded in 2005 by Paul Graham, Jessica
Livingston, Robert Tappan Morris, and Trevor Blackwell.[7]
From 2005 to 2008, one program was in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, and one was in Mountain View, California. As Y
Combinator grew to 40 investments per year, running two programs became too much. In January 2009, Y
Combinator announced that the Cambridge program would be closed and all future programs would be in
Silicon Valley.[8]
In 2009, Sequoia Capital led the $2 million investment round into an entity of Y Combinator to enable it to
invest in approximately 60 companies a year.[9] In 2010, Sequoia led an $8.25 million funding round for Y
Combinator to further increase the number of startups the company could fund.[10]
In 2011, Yuri Milner and SV Angel offered every Y Combinator company a $150,000 convertible note
investment.[11] The amount put into each company was changed to $80,000 when Start Fund was
renewed.[12]
Contents
History

2. Paul Graham talking about Prototype
Day at Y Combinator Summer 2009
In September 2013, Y Combinator began funding nonprofit
organizations that were accepted into the program after testing the
concept with Watsi.[13]
In 2014, Sam Altman replaced Graham as president of Y
Combinator.[14] In 2014, Y Combinator began a new deal for
startups, offering $150,000 for 7 percent equity.[15]
In 2014, Altman announced a partnership with Transcriptic to
provide increased support for Y Combinator's growing community
of biotech companies.[16] In 2015, he announced a partnership with
Bolt and increased support for hardware companies.[17]
The YC Fellowship Program was announced in July 2015, with the goal of funding companies at the idea
or prototype stage.[18] The first batch of YC Fellowship included 32 companies that received an equity-free
grant instead of an investment.[4]
In January 2016, Y Combinator changed the fellowship program, with participating companies receiving
$20k investment for a 1.5 percent equity stake. The equity stake is structured as a convertible security that
converts into shares only if a company has an initial public offering (IPO), or a funding event or acquisition
that values the company at $100 million or more.[19] The fellowship was discontinued in 2017.[20]
In 2016, Y Combinator announced that YC partners would visit 11 countries to meet with founders and
learn more about how they could be helpful to international startup communities. Those 11 countries were
Nigeria, Denmark, Portugal, Sweden, Germany, Russia, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Israel, and India.[21]
In 2016, Altman left Y Combinator, becoming president of YC Group, which includes Y Combinator.
Former Twitter chief financial officer and chief operating officer Ali Rowghani, who was in charge of the
YC Continuity Fund when it began, became CEO of YC Continuity. Michael Seibel, who co-founded
Justin.tv, became CEO of YC Core, the program that Paul Buchheit had run since 2016.[22]
In 2017, Y Combinator began Startup School, an online course that released public videos and coached
individual startups. More than 1500 startups graduated the program in its first year.[23]
In 2018, Y Combinator announced a new batch of startup school. After a software glitch, all 15,000
startups that applied to the program were accepted, only to learn a few hours later that they had been
rejected.[24] But the ensuing outcry led Y Combinator to change course again and decided over an official
blog to finally accept all those 15,000 companies.[25] Now, every company is accepted to join YC Startup
School without any restrictions.
In 2019, Geoff Ralston replaced Altman as president of Y Combinator.[26][27]
The summer 2020 S20 Remote Batch was conducted remotely via videotelephony due to the COVID-19
pandemic.[28]
Y Combinator interviews and selects two or more batches of companies per year. The companies receive
total of $500,000 seed money as well as advice, and connections. The companies receive $125,000 on a
post-money safe in return for 7% equity and $375,000 on an uncapped safe with a Most Favored Nation
(“MFN”) provision. Non-profits receive $100,000 donation. [29] The program includes "office hours",
Programs

3. where startup founders meet individually and group meetings. Founders also participate in weekly dinners
where guests from the Silicon Valley ecosystem (successful entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, etc.) speak to
the founders.
Y Combinator's motto is "Make Something People Want."[30] The program teaches founders to market
their product, team and market, refining their business model, achieving product/market fit, and scaling the
startup into a high growth business, etc. The program ends with Demo Day, where startups present their
business and sometimes technology to potential investors.[31]
The Y combinator operates an additional program and fund designed to support and invest in startups
which have already graduated from the main accelerator program. The YC Growth Program and YC
Continuity fund are operated by the same team and focus on helping fast growing startups which are
approaching 50 employees, and startups raising their Series B funding of $20 million to $100 million. The
YC Continuity fund also occasionally makes investments in companies which did not participate in Y
Combinator's accelerator program, however, that is not the main goal of the fund.[32][33]
Y Combinator has introduced additional programs since 2015, including:
In July 2015, Y Combinator introduced the YC Fellowship Program aimed at companies at
an earlier stage than the main program.[18]
In October 2015, Y Combinator introduced the YC Continuity Fund. The fund allows Y
Combinator to make pro rata investments in their alumni companies with valuations under
$300 million. Y Combinator will also consider leading or participating in later stage growth
financing rounds for YC companies.[34]
Nonprofit research lab YC Research was announced in October 2015. Researchers are
paid as full-time employees and can receive equity in Y Combinator.[35][36][37] OpenAI was
the first project undertaken by YC Research, and in January 2016 a second study on basic
income was also announced.[38] Another project is research on new cities.[39] Australian
quantum physicist Michael Nielsen is a research fellow at YC Research since 2017.[40]
In October 2015, YC introduced YC Research to fund long-term fundamental research. YC
President Sam Altman donated $10m.[35]
During 2017–2019, YC launched Startup School, the Series A program, the YC Growth
program, Work at a Startup, and YC China.[41]
In March 2019, it was reported that Y Combinator was moving headquarters to San
Francisco.[42]
As of late 2021, Y Combinator had invested in >3,000 companies,[2] most of which are for-profit. Non-
profit organizations can also participate in the main YC program.[43] Few non-profits have been accepted
in the last years, among them Watsi, Women Who Code, New Story (charity), SIRUM (organization),
Zidisha, 80,000 Hours, and Our World in Data.[44]
Y Combinator was founded in March 2005 by Paul Graham, Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris and Trevor
Blackwell.
In 2010, Kirsty Nathoo joined as an accountant and became CFO in 2012.[45]
In early 2010, Harj Taggar joined as an advisor. In September 2010, Alexis Ohanian joined.[46] In
November 2010, Paul Buchheit and Harj Taggar were named partners.[47] In 2015, Taggar left YC.[48]
People

4. YC Research logo
In January 2011, Garry Tan joined YC, first as designer-in-residence and later as partner.[49][50] He left YC
in November 2015.[50]
Later in 2011, Aaron Iba joined as a partner.[51]
In February 2014, Sam Altman became president of Y Combinator.[14] Y Combinator also announced a
Board of Overseers: Brian Chesky, Adora Cheung, Patrick Collison, Drew Houston, Jessica Livingston,
David Rusenko, Emmett Shear, and Sam Altman.
Michael Seibel joined Y Combinator as part-time partner in January 2013 and later became a full-time
Partner in 2014.[52]
Ali Rowghani is listed on the YC website as the managing partner of YC Continuity.[52]
The company includes visiting partners Kevin Hale, Solomon Hykes, Holly Liu, Diego Rey, Aaron
Epstein.[52][53]
In 2018, Y Combinator announced that Lu Qi, a former CEO of Baidu and Bing, would join the company
as CEO of YC China.[54] Y Combinator announced that Lu left YC in November 2019.[55]
In March 2019, Y Combinator announced its president Sam Altman would be transitioning into a
Chairman position to focus more on OpenAI and Geoff Ralston would be the new president.[41][56]
Y Combinator has been blamed for its encouragement of the ageism culture in Silicon Valley. Paul Graham
said in 2005 that people over 38 lacked the energy to launch startups.[57] It was also at a Y Combinator
event, the 2007 Startup School, that Mark Zuckerberg said, "Young people are just smarter".[58] Research
on this issue published by Harvard Business Review found Y Combinator's views to be misguided, as the
average age of a successful startup founder was found to be 45 years old.[59]
The Human Advancement Research Community (HARC) project
was set up with the "mission to ensure human wisdom exceeds
human power".[60][61] The project was inspired by a conversation
between Sam Altman and Alan Kay.[62] Its projects include
modelling, visualizing and teaching software, as well as
programming languages. Members include Alan Kay and Bret
Victor. Other people who have worked for HARC include Vi Hart. Patrick Scaglia was chair of HARC
and was listed as an advisor in 2017.[63][64]
Hacker News
List of Y Combinator startups
Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator
Techstars
500 Startups
HighTechXL
Controversies
YC Research
See also

5. 1. Jackson, Christopher (Aug 5, 2012). "Y Combinator's first batch: where are they now?" (http
s://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/08/05/y-combinators-first-batch-where-are-they-now/).
2. "Y Combinator Companies List" (https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/).
3. "Y Combinator Top Companies List – 2019" (https://www.ycombinator.com/topcompanies/).
4. "Y Combinator" (https://www.ycombinator.com/topcompanies/). January 14, 2021. Retrieved
January 14, 2021.
5. Patel, Nilay (2021-06-08). "The next generation of startups is remote" (https://www.theverge.
com/22522731/decoder-podcast-michael-seibel-interview-y-combinator-startups). The
Verge. Retrieved 2021-07-05.
6. Geron, Tomio (April 30, 2012). "Top Startup Incubators And Accelerators: Y Combinator Tops
With $7.8 Billion In Value" (https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2012/04/30/top-tech-inc
ubators-as-ranked-by-forbes-y-combinator-tops-with-7-billion-in-value/?sh=779ce61551f3).
forbes. Retrieved September 21, 2021.
7. Graham, Paul (March 15, 2012). "How Y Combinator Started" (https://web.archive.org/web/2
0140717042134/http://old.ycombinator.com/start.html). Y Combinator. Archived from the
original (http://old.ycombinator.com/start.html) on July 17, 2014. Retrieved October 22, 2016.
8. Graham, Paul (January 2009). "California Year-Round" (https://web.archive.org/web/201703
06095108/http://old.ycombinator.com/ycca.html). Y Combinator. Archived from the original (h
ttp://old.ycombinator.com/ycca.html) on March 6, 2017. Retrieved October 22, 2016.
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3/16/y-combinator-gets-the-sequoia-capital-seal-of-approval/). TechCrunch. 2009-05-16.
Retrieved 2011-02-10.
10. Rao, Leena (21 May 2010). "Y Combinator Closes New $8.25 Million Fund, Sequoia Is
Lead Investor" (https://techcrunch.com/2010/05/21/y-combinator-closes-new-8-25-million-fun
d-sequoia-is-lead-investor/). TechCrunch.com. Retrieved 22 June 2016.
11. Arrington, Michael (January 28, 2011). "Start Fund: Yuri Milner, SV Angel Offer EVERY New
Y Combinator Startup $150k" (https://techcrunch.com/2011/01/28/yuri-milner-sv-angel-offer-
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12. Rao, Leena (November 26, 2012). "Y Combinator's YC VC Will Replace The Start Fund;
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012/11/26/y-combinator-debuts-yc-vc-to-replace-the-start-fund-includes-yuri-milner-andrees
sen-horowitz/). TechCrunch. Retrieved October 22, 2016.
13. Yeung, Ken (6 September 2013). "Y Combinator to Fund Non-Profit Startups with Charitable
Donations" (https://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/09/06/following-watsi-y-combinator-to-now-
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sam-altman-for-president). Y Combinator. Retrieved October 22, 2016.
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Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Y_Combinator&oldid=1076683368"
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External links