6 ms·

YC Stats

249 points by macleanjr 11y ago

superman007 11y ago
Valuations are numbers coming from thin air,, I wonder what will be the total profits of YC company. When i ask profits ,its actual net profit ,, not some accounting gimmick !
bsbechtel 11y ago
I would be very interested in seeing a cohort analysis of YC company valuations by batch :-)
dzlobin 11y ago
Nice to see more detailed stats on this stuff. One figure I'd really like to see is the number of companies worth more than $10M & $50M.
jypepin 11y ago
how good or bad are those numbers? only 8/970 companies are worth > 1b and 40 are worth over 100M. I assume YC is doing great for themselves, so I'm wondering, what is the rule of thumb to say an investment was successful? (for YC, knowing they invest cheap and early.) Is it once a company reaches 10M? 1M? Where there is an exit? It would be interesting to know how many companies YC says the investment was a success (either made money or will if no exit yet).
- gsharma 11y ago
  These numbers are great from aggregation/press perspective, but they are not enough to tell if YC is doing good or bad. For instance, last 3 YC batches had ~250 (or maybe 300) companies funded. That is almost 1/3 of the total companies funded by YC. It will take another couple of years to determine what the success rate for these companies is.
- onion2k 11y ago
  how good or bad are those numbers? only 8/970 companies are worth > 1b and 40 are worth over 100M. The billion dollar number is freaking incredible. There are 115 venture-backed private companies globally that have unicorn valuations[1]. For 8 of them to have been through the same accelerator is amazing. [1] http://graphics.wsj.com/billion-dollar-club/ http://graphics.wsj.com/billion-dollar-club/
- smt88 11y ago
  Valuations are currently so high and IPOs are so difficult that you shouldn't pay much attention to the valuation stats. If all of those companies wanted to exit at the price of their most recent raise, they wouldn't be able to. That means that at least some of the valuations are unrealistic.
- jazzyk 11y ago
  >8/970 companies are worth > 1b and 40 are worth over 100M. Sorry to be negative, but worth according to whom? If none of these companies are public, the valuation comes from a very narrow group of private investors. In what seems to be a bubble (and an echo chamber) in S.V., these valuations may be vastly overstated. That said, kudos to YC for being transparent.
  - jazzyk 11y ago
    To all the down-voters: Do you not think that solid data such as revenue, revenue growth and profit/loss (or at least burn rate) would be a much better measure of success? Some non-public companies (like Uber) publish some of these numbers.
  - SuperKlaus 11y ago
    Excellent point, most of the companies couldn't exit at whatever valuation they raised money last.
- deleted 11y ago
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julien_c 11y ago
Number of companies we offered to fund yesterday for the first YC Fellowship: 32 That's a figure I was looking for (took the interview yesterday, didn't get in).
- ryanSrich 11y ago
  Can you write a blog post on your experience? I'd be interested to see how closely it resembles YC.
andreasklinger 11y ago
> Number of companies in the last batch: 107 Wow. Just wow.
minimaxir 11y ago
Interesting way to bury the lede that 32 companies received a Fellowship offer. The estimate was 20. (http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/20/y-combinator-just-introduced-a-new-program-to-reach-up-to-1000-companies-per-year/ http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/20/y-combinator-just-introduce...)
- sama 11y ago
  Honestly if we were prepared to take 320 that would have been good. The quality was outstanding.
  - snake117 11y ago
    I really underestimated the amount of applications that you guys received. I was thinking maybe a few hundred, like 800 or 900, at the most, but 6500? I was way off. I was wondering though, if the Fellowship program showed great results and you guys decide to continue it, how much equity would you ask for? Have you thought that far ahead yet?
    - dkyc 11y ago
      I have no inside info, but I think YC Fellowship could be a startup lead generation system: when you get a Fellowship grant and your company begins to work out, you will probably apply to YC and get accepted. Then YC receives equity (and only the equity of the huge winners matter financially).
  - DrNuke 11y ago
    You will see many coming back stronger for YC W16 application: 2015 is big time in a lot of fields. The YC ecosystem (alumni and network) is so diverse and lively nowadays that it could even generate self-sustaining innovation, more than universities and corporations.
brayton 11y ago
What does it mean by saying "got their start with us"? I believe many companies have been around for awhile before YC. Many already with revenue, traction and funds raised (although this might be the exception to the rule?).
- garry 11y ago
  This is a relatively new phenomenon which is also why the YCF program exists now. Time was, you had a team and a demo.
- sama 11y ago
  The great majority of companies we fund, even in recent batches, have effectively zero revenue when we fund them. But certainly more have a product and users than they used to, which is why we're doing the fellowship.
  - brayton 11y ago
    YCF is an awesome move guys. Stays true to the funding of a good team/idea philosophy YC began with.
- mattkrisiloff 11y ago
  I would also just add that you should still feel welcome to apply to YC's normal program if you're still in the idea or prototype stage. Like kevin said elsewhere in the thread, it's about finding the amazing founders in the margins -- we want to see everything, and YC can still be a good fit for everyone.
lordnacho 11y ago
Since applications are opening tomorrow, it would be interesting to have a breakdown of interviews/acceptances based on various criteria: sole founder, has revenue, has user, etc... It would allow prospective applicants to think about whether to apply, and hopefully keep the pile a manageable size for the people reading it.
- kevin 11y ago
  Might be interesting, but the odds are the wrong way to think about this. Our wins come from the margins and we're looking for people to beat the odds. Most of the time we are surprised what ends up becoming big. The numbers reveal that it's hard, but startups were ALWAYS hard. It's still the hardest thing I've ever done and most founders say the same. As far as YC is concerned, we don't want people to try to make this easier for us. One of the unique properties of YC is that we're trying to fund startups at scale and that means we don't want founders thinking about trying to make it manageable for us by bowing out. That's how I miss out on someone on the margins. It's one of the reasons why I love working on the YC software team to try and solve these challenges. So please, don't take away my work. :) My favorite founders are filled with grit and perseverance. They don't calculate whether they can change the world before starting, they just start. So if you're ready to do something hard and feel like it's within you to change the world, please do apply...the numbers be damned.
  - lordnacho 11y ago
    Cool. You may have bought yourself 3 more applications then. I know a couple of other groups (aside from mine) who would benefit from this programme.
  - ugolino91 11y ago
    respect
  - wattle_park 11y ago
    I have admired YC from afar, and wish to be part of it. After much reading on PG essays, Sam A interviews and YC demographic (young male founders), the odds are against us. Last week's NY Times article on Amazon culture, reminded me of YC. There are few similarities in concepts (work life balance, female discriminations). YCF was targeted for young founders (Sam's interview mentioned low burn rate). I understand that startup life is hard, but thinking that older people will find it harder to cope is very naive. There are lots of new innovations that can be developed with the experiences and knowledges from older founders. True that there have been some young extraordinary unicorns. But I am sure that experiences and knowledges can help to build a better long lasting businesses.
dantillberg 11y ago
These stats are great, or at least they sound great to an aspiring entrepreneur. I've seen stuff like this for a long time on HN, and a feeling took hold in me that I've only started to really shake recently, a feeling that the best and most determined founders will always get into YC, and that failing to get into (or apply to) YC is an indication of weakness. But just remember that, even though these numbers look amazing, you can create a business via other means and still possibly achieve whatever sort of success you're after -- you don't have to join an accelerator, or get prestigious seed or venture funding. Or at least, I think that you shouldn't have to.
sydneyliu 11y ago
Sam also just tweeted that 300 YC companies are no longer around. Amazing how much transparent they are and how great YC is at picking and training. So many really crazy ideas that most would think are insane and YC is able to find the ones that make sense and help them. Seems like that's a bit less than 1/3 of all YC companies Tweet is here: https://twitter.com/sama/status/636586179970752512 https://twitter.com/sama/status/636586179970752512
- codingdave 11y ago
  YC filters applicants for dedicated founders who will not give up easily. It is amazing what can be accomplished by manic perseverance.
  - jordigg 11y ago
    Last week I saw this from Sam. > If we don’t invest in these companies, they don’t happen… The thing about Y Combinator that’s cool is that most companies won’t happen if we don’t fund them.[1] I thought YC was always looking to fund those that would exist with or without YC. I have seen less and less "crazy bets" every batch, but I have to say there's more diversity of founders and topics (biotech, energy, farming). Companies generate revenue before DemoDay and many are startups that work for other startups. It's not a bad thing but would love to see more Airbnbs or Reddits around. Those are the ones that can generate a true impact on society and can only exist thanks to YC giving them a chance. The fellowship can be a great starting point for those. [1] http://venturebeat.com/2015/08/23/sam-altman-and-jessica-livingston-explain-y-combinators-success/ http://venturebeat.com/2015/08/23/sam-altman-and-jessica-liv...
    - sydneyliu 11y ago
      I think Sam is saying that without YC, there are some companies that may not end up succeeding or being able to raise and continue on (without YC's network, advice, speed, focus etc. to help them) The distinction is that they want to fund companies who would continue working on it even if they didn't get into YC. They are so passionate about the problem that they will try to make it succeed no matter what.
mdc2161 11y ago
another stat from sama on twitter: > Oh, another important stat: about 300 of the companies we have funded have shut down.
npalli 11y ago
Interesting twitter update by sama > Oh, another important stat: about 300 of the companies we have funded have shut down. This is a hard gig. Even after you get into the top accelerator in silicon valley.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  Top accelerator in the world. Even so I find sama's comment further up about not encouraging people to start an accelerator quite funny.
7Figures2Commas 11y ago
"Market cap" is a poorly-chosen descriptor because the vast majority (all?) of the companies in YC's portfolio are private. The use of the term "market cap" is especially ironic given Sam's recent post on "financial misstatements"[1]. If founders are expected to use financial terms accurately and appropriately, shouldn't investors be expected to do the same? [1] http://blog.samaltman.com/financial-misstatements http://blog.samaltman.com/financial-misstatements
- harmegido 11y ago
  It looks like it says "valuation" now. However, he's not trying to pitch you on investing in anything, so he can use whatever language he wants. The point of the blog post that I took was that it is illegal to mislead potential investors about your company.
  - 7Figures2Commas 11y ago
    So in your mind the only reason one should use accurate language would be to avoid the risk of civil or criminal litigation? Fascinating.
    - vasilipupkin 11y ago
      why is market cap not accurate language? Even private companies have market caps. These market caps are set in the private markets. Market cap = # of shares outstanding * price of each share. Applies to both private and public companies
      - 7Figures2Commas 11y ago
        Please talk to somebody who works in finance. You will virtually never hear the term "market cap" used to describe the value of private companies. If you use this term in this context, it will be assumed that you don't know what you're talking about. There's a reason Sam updated the language in his post...
cm2012 11y ago
Considering there is probably a vintage effect, and currently 5% of YC companies are worth over $100 million, that means that most likely 5-10% of founders that join YC will become millionaires over time. That's pretty impressive.
- JonFish85 11y ago
  Keep in mind that there really haven't been many large exits, which lock in the valuations. I think YC is doing extraordinarily valuable things, but let's not get too blinded by big numbers. On-paper millionaires are one thing; actually being able to lock that money down is another thing entirely. Edit: Forgot a word.
- cbr 11y ago
  That's not a super high bar. Most of these founders could get $200k jobs at top tech companies, invest $100k/year, and be a millionaire in ~10 years. Much better than 10% odds!
  - iaw 11y ago
    Founders also get paid well at startups once they've raised funds. There's a large difference between having a couple million dollars amassed as retirement savings and having millions amassed long before retirement. The lifestyles and opportunity spectrums are wildly different between the two.
  - eachro 11y ago
    Investing 100k/year seems a bit much. With ~40% tax, the take home is closer to 120k. Add in Bay Area rent, leisure, random fixed costs(car insurance, significant others expenses, pets, etc) and its probably closer to 80k at best. Though, I do wonder, how feasible would it be to end up with a 2+mill nest egg(or however much you need to live off the gains) by ~35 and retire right then and there.
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snake117 11y ago
I keep reading that seed investment firms consider it "good" if 4 out of every 10 startups they fund turn out to be something of value. Over time this is showing to be true.
dude_abides 11y ago
Number of companies funded by YC that have shut down: ~300 Does this include aqui-hires? Also, would you know how many companies rejected by YC are worth more than $1 billion? Zero or non-zero? :)
- smt88 11y ago
  Why would it include acqui-hires? Companies rarely broadcast the fact that they're acqui-hiring, so it's not always a black-and-white issue. Also, saying a company was acqui-hired makes a VC look less successful, so they have an incentive not to be honest about it.
nicklovescode 11y ago
How many founders have gone through YC?
mattmanser 11y ago
As a clarification, by 'shutdown' do you mean failed, or does that include people who sold or were aquihired? Good to see the 90% of startups fail 'statistic' blown out the water with some facts!
- frostmatthew 11y ago
  > Good to see the 90% of startups fail 'statistic' blown out the water with some facts! If YC companies were representative of all startups there wouldn't be any point in going through YC.
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- benologist 11y ago
  ~11% of their investments were in the last batch so I wouldn't read the ~30% dead rate as conclusive, a lot will need more time to die.
pesenti 11y ago
It would be great to get stats about exits as well. How many exits? Total valuation at exit? Median/average age at exit? etc.
harmegido 11y ago
Ok, so I did some quick numbers on performance. It looks like the first batch was in 2005, meaning ycombinator has been at this for 10 years. Have they always funded with 120k? Assuming that (and not present valuing the older money): Total Investment: ~$131,600,000 Total Companies Value: >$65,000,000,000 YCombinator's 7% Value: $4,550,000,000 Total Return: 3357% Annualized Return: 42.5% Obviously, it costs more than the initial investment, but these are really nice numbers if compared to a mutual fund, etc. Did I make any mistaken assumptions?
- deleted 11y ago
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- npkarnik 11y ago
  You're not factoring dilution in at all, for one. Also, the 120k is more recent.
- sthomps 11y ago
  Need to take into account dilution in subsequent fundings. So much less than 7%. #s are still out of this world though
- nostrademons 11y ago
  The $120K is only since 2014: https://blog.ycombinator.com/the-new-deal https://blog.ycombinator.com/the-new-deal From 2012-2014, YC companies received an automatic $85K follow-on investment from a syndicate of investors, though this was not funded by YC. From 2011-2012, they received an automatic $150K from Yuri Milner. From 2005-2011, it was $6K/founder (I think very early on, it was a flat $20K). So YC's capital expended has been a lot less over time than the current deal would reflect.
- jnevelson 11y ago
  Need to take dilution into account here. If we assume a (optimistic?) 1% stake, that's $650M. YC recently (1-2 years ago?) started giving 120k. Before that, it was 10-20k. So let's say half of what you said is the total investment = 65M. That's a 10X return. I actually was expecting higher. Am I missing something in my numbers?
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eloff 11y ago
I think there's a big elephant in the room here. Companies usually take time to fail, especially with VC funding. The companies from the newer batches are going to be skewing those fail statistics. If you only look at companies from 4 years ago and older, you might get a more realistic impression. It still won't be 90% though, but YC companies are widely known to not be representative. It's the highest profile accelerator, so it attracts the best talent. Just like people who graduate from Ivy League schools earn more on average, but mostly that's because they attract people who are above average to begin with.
- bobbles 11y ago
  But if they choose to provide stats each year thatll work out over time right? I mean you have to start somewhere
source99 11y ago
Is there a calculation for REAL ROI? Not based on current valuation but based on actual exits and money returned to YC?
- BillFranklin 11y ago
  Doesn't look like. But 5% of 65 billion is 3.25 billion. Nice ballpark stats.
sama 11y ago
Also, please do not take this as encouragement to start an accelerator. Accelerators on the whole are a terrible business, and we try to be up front about that with everyone who comes to us for advice.
- roymurdock 11y ago
  If the accelerator business on the whole is terrible, what sets Y Combinator apart and makes it a good company in a bad market - earning at 10% annual returns, 30% IRR as noted further up in the thread? Is it YC's human resources, position in the market, branding, some combination?
  - myblake 11y ago
    It's got to be the position in the market at this point (though probably started out as human capital to get to that point). They're seeing most of the good deals for early stage companies because they're so far ahead anyone else in the space, which is obviously in your best interest in something where the best deals are several orders of magnitude better than a merely good deal and the average case is failure.
  - sama 11y ago
    Our IRR was over 100% last time I calculated it; those numbers were really off.
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bachback 11y ago
see also: http://yclist.com http://yclist.com
mhartl 11y ago
Interesting to hear that eight YC companies are worth over $1b. I count Airbnb, Dropbox, Stripe, and Twitch for sure, and probably Weebly makes five. Any thoughts on what the others are?
- bachback 11y ago
  +probably coinbase
  - MichaelGG 11y ago
    Depending how much they bought in when they started, they could have a huge gain just from the increase in BTC.
- boling11 11y ago
  Zenefits and Instacart for sure. Machine Zone is likely as well.
- randall 11y ago
  no inside info but i bet memsql is a lurker in that club.
netcan 11y ago
Stark reminder of how top heavy returns are. A lot of the talk and criticism about the startup world: valuation, investment, focusing on numbers other than revenue and such is ultimately explainable by going back to this. For a bit more, dropbox & AirBnb are worth 10 & 25 billion. That's over half the total $65bn from 2/940 companies, 0.21%. Even if we assume these stats grossly underestimate ultimate valuations because of most of the companies are still young, it's still likely to end at >50% of value from <1% individuals. This is for companies that get into YC, which is already a select group.
- JonFish85 11y ago
  Remember: until there's an "event", there are no "returns". Until a buyout or an acquisition happens, there's no money made except on paper.
  - beambot 11y ago
    And after a liquidity event, the money is really just a bunch of electrons in a computer or magnetic domains on a disk somewhere...
    - davnicwil 11y ago
      Not sure why this is downvoted, it's a very interesting point. Equity in a privately-held company has value in precisely the same abstract sense that money has value. Both are tokens of, and therefore exchangeable for, real work. Why else do people take equity as part of compensation? I think what beambot is getting at here is the value of 'what you own' doesn't become any more or less real after you trade equity for money in a liquidity event. It's fundamentally just as abstract as it ever was, or will be.
      - beambot 11y ago
        Spot on. The only differences are risk, liquidity, and fungibility. But the "money" aspect is fairly abstract up until you're actually trying to spend/exchange it.
Mz 11y ago
Number of hardware + biotech + healthcare companies in the last batch: 32 Coolios. I take it YC has some initiative wrt biotech and healthcare and I missed it (cuz I am busy)?
jkw 11y ago
Which companies are the 8 that are worth >= $1 billion?
- pbreit 11y ago
  AirBnB, Dropbox, Stripe, Twitch, Zenefits, Instacart, Docker, Machine Zone. Not sure about the last one. Quora? Mixpanel? Edit: oops, that's 8 without Quora & Mixpanel. Machine Zone was surprising. Hadn't even heard of it.
  - jkw 11y ago
    Looks like you've listed 8
pbreit 11y ago
Wow, 300 shutdowns. Does that include "acqui-hires"? Also pretty incredible that they're over 100 in this last batch.
BinaryIdiot 11y ago
Thanks for publishing these! They're pretty interesting and they certainly paint YCombinator in a really positive light. It would be pretty awesome to see a roll up regarding the failed companies and aggregated reasons why they failed. At a certain point you can only learn so much from other's failures but it would be interesting non-the-less.
kumarm 11y ago
(Since no one is pointing out Elephant in the room, I will do that). YC has been around for 10 years. Average age of a company from First Investment to IPO in 2014 is less than 10 years (http://lifescivc.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Time-From-VC-Investment-to-IPO_Feb2015.jpg http://lifescivc.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Time-From-VC... Source 1.) Personally, I believe startups excel when odds were stacks against us (forced to innovate and make founders strong and tested). I think YC or any incubator has a structure that shields companies from facing challenges initially. I don't think Incubators are proven to be a great Idea yet ( if you are someone with industry experience rather than a fresh graduate). 1. http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucebooth/2015/02/24/tortoise-hare-revisited-time-to-ipo-for-vc-backed-startups/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucebooth/2015/02/24/tortoise-h...
- jkarneges 11y ago
  VCs don't invest at the idea stage, so most initial funding comes from angels or accelerators (or bootstrapped because founders are already rich, but that doesn't count). Since having industry experience does not necessarily equate to having a vast angel network, accelerators fill in the gap.
amelius 11y ago
Over 900 companies, and all we're getting are 10 numbers? Am I missing something?
sheel 11y ago
It takes a long time to build a Unicorn... airbnb dropbox stripe twitch weebly machinezone were all funded >5 years ago... Unicorns in the past 5 years are Instacart and Zenefits (there will surely be others). In general it is hard to measure performance of the entire portfolio, much easier to measure performance of a class.
valhalla 11y ago
Does anyone know where one could find (if YC's published the stat) of the median/average age for the founders of the companies worth > $1 billion and $100 million?
downandout 11y ago
>This includes Twitch, which Amazon bought for ~970MM plus an earn-out. These kinds of companies with massive bandwidth costs rarely become profitable, and even if Twitch bucks the trend, Amazon could easily use Hollywood accounting to avoid any payments on the earn-out (for example, it could charge Twitch retail rates for use of AWS services). It strikes me as a bad decision to accept an earn-out when the overwhelming likelihood is that the clause will result in exactly $0 going to the former owners. Re: stats, 40 out of 940 are worth more than $100M. Dozens more are probably worth at least $25M. That is an insanely high success rate. The YC system works!
- patio11 11y ago
  That particular example aside, useful information for many HNers: Earn outs in tech are routinely earned out. They're negotiated with the assistance of very smart, very highly paid specialists, too. A fairly common outcome (anecdata from friends) is that the earnout is virtually in the bag at the 50% point and after that they are mildly frustrated with thumb-twiddling while waiting for the clock.
  - loumf 11y ago
    From my anecdata, the acquiring company is using the earn-out as more of a test that what you are saying at acquisition time is true. It augments due-diligence. Meaning, if you are right about the business, these milestones are trivial to hit. If you don't accept the earn-out, it's a signal that something you are saying is either wrong or being misinterpreted.
- qq66 11y ago
  YouTube has massive bandwidth costs, and it became profitable. Bandwidth keeps getting cheaper, user attention maintains its value or gets more valuable over time.
  - downandout 11y ago
    Which is why I said most companies with large bandwidth costs do not become profitable. YouTube eventually is one notable, glaring exception. But even they took years, billions of dollars in infrastructure investment and losses on bandwidth, access to a massive existing base of advertisers that already trusted its parent company, and arguably the best monetization team in the history of capitalism to achieve profitability.

249 points by macleanjr 11y ago

Valuations are numbers coming from thin air,, I wonder what will be the total profits of YC company. When i ask profits ,its actual net profit ,, not some accounting gimmick !

bsbechtel 11y ago

I would be very interested in seeing a cohort analysis of YC company valuations by batch :-)

dzlobin 11y ago

Nice to see more detailed stats on this stuff. One figure I'd really like to see is the number of companies worth more than $10M & $50M.

jypepin 11y ago

how good or bad are those numbers? only 8/970 companies are worth > 1b and 40 are worth over 100M. I assume YC is doing great for themselves, so I'm wondering, what is the rule of thumb to say an investment was successful? (for YC, knowing they invest cheap and early.) Is it once a company reaches 10M? 1M? Where there is an exit? It would be interesting to know how many companies YC says the investment was a success (either made money or will if no exit yet).

gsharma 11y ago
These numbers are great from aggregation/press perspective, but they are not enough to tell if YC is doing good or bad. For instance, last 3 YC batches had ~250 (or maybe 300) companies funded. That is almost 1/3 of the total companies funded by YC. It will take another couple of years to determine what the success rate for these companies is.
onion2k 11y ago
how good or bad are those numbers? only 8/970 companies are worth > 1b and 40 are worth over 100M. The billion dollar number is freaking incredible. There are 115 venture-backed private companies globally that have unicorn valuations[1]. For 8 of them to have been through the same accelerator is amazing. [1] http://graphics.wsj.com/billion-dollar-club/ http://graphics.wsj.com/billion-dollar-club/
smt88 11y ago
Valuations are currently so high and IPOs are so difficult that you shouldn't pay much attention to the valuation stats. If all of those companies wanted to exit at the price of their most recent raise, they wouldn't be able to. That means that at least some of the valuations are unrealistic.
jazzyk 11y ago
>8/970 companies are worth > 1b and 40 are worth over 100M. Sorry to be negative, but worth according to whom? If none of these companies are public, the valuation comes from a very narrow group of private investors. In what seems to be a bubble (and an echo chamber) in S.V., these valuations may be vastly overstated. That said, kudos to YC for being transparent.
- jazzyk 11y ago
  To all the down-voters: Do you not think that solid data such as revenue, revenue growth and profit/loss (or at least burn rate) would be a much better measure of success? Some non-public companies (like Uber) publish some of these numbers.
- SuperKlaus 11y ago
  Excellent point, most of the companies couldn't exit at whatever valuation they raised money last.
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julien_c 11y ago

Number of companies we offered to fund yesterday for the first YC Fellowship: 32 That's a figure I was looking for (took the interview yesterday, didn't get in).

ryanSrich 11y ago
Can you write a blog post on your experience? I'd be interested to see how closely it resembles YC.

andreasklinger 11y ago

> Number of companies in the last batch: 107 Wow. Just wow.

minimaxir 11y ago

Interesting way to bury the lede that 32 companies received a Fellowship offer. The estimate was 20. (http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/20/y-combinator-just-introduced-a-new-program-to-reach-up-to-1000-companies-per-year/ http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/20/y-combinator-just-introduce...)

sama 11y ago
Honestly if we were prepared to take 320 that would have been good. The quality was outstanding.
- snake117 11y ago
  I really underestimated the amount of applications that you guys received. I was thinking maybe a few hundred, like 800 or 900, at the most, but 6500? I was way off. I was wondering though, if the Fellowship program showed great results and you guys decide to continue it, how much equity would you ask for? Have you thought that far ahead yet?
  - dkyc 11y ago
    I have no inside info, but I think YC Fellowship could be a startup lead generation system: when you get a Fellowship grant and your company begins to work out, you will probably apply to YC and get accepted. Then YC receives equity (and only the equity of the huge winners matter financially).
- DrNuke 11y ago
  You will see many coming back stronger for YC W16 application: 2015 is big time in a lot of fields. The YC ecosystem (alumni and network) is so diverse and lively nowadays that it could even generate self-sustaining innovation, more than universities and corporations.

brayton 11y ago

What does it mean by saying "got their start with us"? I believe many companies have been around for awhile before YC. Many already with revenue, traction and funds raised (although this might be the exception to the rule?).

garry 11y ago
This is a relatively new phenomenon which is also why the YCF program exists now. Time was, you had a team and a demo.
sama 11y ago
The great majority of companies we fund, even in recent batches, have effectively zero revenue when we fund them. But certainly more have a product and users than they used to, which is why we're doing the fellowship.
- brayton 11y ago
  YCF is an awesome move guys. Stays true to the funding of a good team/idea philosophy YC began with.
mattkrisiloff 11y ago
I would also just add that you should still feel welcome to apply to YC's normal program if you're still in the idea or prototype stage. Like kevin said elsewhere in the thread, it's about finding the amazing founders in the margins -- we want to see everything, and YC can still be a good fit for everyone.

lordnacho 11y ago

Since applications are opening tomorrow, it would be interesting to have a breakdown of interviews/acceptances based on various criteria: sole founder, has revenue, has user, etc... It would allow prospective applicants to think about whether to apply, and hopefully keep the pile a manageable size for the people reading it.

kevin 11y ago
Might be interesting, but the odds are the wrong way to think about this. Our wins come from the margins and we're looking for people to beat the odds. Most of the time we are surprised what ends up becoming big. The numbers reveal that it's hard, but startups were ALWAYS hard. It's still the hardest thing I've ever done and most founders say the same. As far as YC is concerned, we don't want people to try to make this easier for us. One of the unique properties of YC is that we're trying to fund startups at scale and that means we don't want founders thinking about trying to make it manageable for us by bowing out. That's how I miss out on someone on the margins. It's one of the reasons why I love working on the YC software team to try and solve these challenges. So please, don't take away my work. :) My favorite founders are filled with grit and perseverance. They don't calculate whether they can change the world before starting, they just start. So if you're ready to do something hard and feel like it's within you to change the world, please do apply...the numbers be damned.
- lordnacho 11y ago
  Cool. You may have bought yourself 3 more applications then. I know a couple of other groups (aside from mine) who would benefit from this programme.
- ugolino91 11y ago
  respect
- wattle_park 11y ago
  I have admired YC from afar, and wish to be part of it. After much reading on PG essays, Sam A interviews and YC demographic (young male founders), the odds are against us. Last week's NY Times article on Amazon culture, reminded me of YC. There are few similarities in concepts (work life balance, female discriminations). YCF was targeted for young founders (Sam's interview mentioned low burn rate). I understand that startup life is hard, but thinking that older people will find it harder to cope is very naive. There are lots of new innovations that can be developed with the experiences and knowledges from older founders. True that there have been some young extraordinary unicorns. But I am sure that experiences and knowledges can help to build a better long lasting businesses.

dantillberg 11y ago

These stats are great, or at least they sound great to an aspiring entrepreneur. I've seen stuff like this for a long time on HN, and a feeling took hold in me that I've only started to really shake recently, a feeling that the best and most determined founders will always get into YC, and that failing to get into (or apply to) YC is an indication of weakness. But just remember that, even though these numbers look amazing, you can create a business via other means and still possibly achieve whatever sort of success you're after -- you don't have to join an accelerator, or get prestigious seed or venture funding. Or at least, I think that you shouldn't have to.

sydneyliu 11y ago

Sam also just tweeted that 300 YC companies are no longer around. Amazing how much transparent they are and how great YC is at picking and training. So many really crazy ideas that most would think are insane and YC is able to find the ones that make sense and help them. Seems like that's a bit less than 1/3 of all YC companies Tweet is here: https://twitter.com/sama/status/636586179970752512 https://twitter.com/sama/status/636586179970752512

codingdave 11y ago
YC filters applicants for dedicated founders who will not give up easily. It is amazing what can be accomplished by manic perseverance.
- jordigg 11y ago
  Last week I saw this from Sam. > If we don’t invest in these companies, they don’t happen… The thing about Y Combinator that’s cool is that most companies won’t happen if we don’t fund them.[1] I thought YC was always looking to fund those that would exist with or without YC. I have seen less and less "crazy bets" every batch, but I have to say there's more diversity of founders and topics (biotech, energy, farming). Companies generate revenue before DemoDay and many are startups that work for other startups. It's not a bad thing but would love to see more Airbnbs or Reddits around. Those are the ones that can generate a true impact on society and can only exist thanks to YC giving them a chance. The fellowship can be a great starting point for those. [1] http://venturebeat.com/2015/08/23/sam-altman-and-jessica-livingston-explain-y-combinators-success/ http://venturebeat.com/2015/08/23/sam-altman-and-jessica-liv...
  - sydneyliu 11y ago
    I think Sam is saying that without YC, there are some companies that may not end up succeeding or being able to raise and continue on (without YC's network, advice, speed, focus etc. to help them) The distinction is that they want to fund companies who would continue working on it even if they didn't get into YC. They are so passionate about the problem that they will try to make it succeed no matter what.

mdc2161 11y ago

another stat from sama on twitter: > Oh, another important stat: about 300 of the companies we have funded have shut down.

npalli 11y ago

Interesting twitter update by sama > Oh, another important stat: about 300 of the companies we have funded have shut down. This is a hard gig. Even after you get into the top accelerator in silicon valley.

jacquesm 11y ago
Top accelerator in the world. Even so I find sama's comment further up about not encouraging people to start an accelerator quite funny.

7Figures2Commas 11y ago

"Market cap" is a poorly-chosen descriptor because the vast majority (all?) of the companies in YC's portfolio are private. The use of the term "market cap" is especially ironic given Sam's recent post on "financial misstatements"[1]. If founders are expected to use financial terms accurately and appropriately, shouldn't investors be expected to do the same? [1] http://blog.samaltman.com/financial-misstatements http://blog.samaltman.com/financial-misstatements

harmegido 11y ago
It looks like it says "valuation" now. However, he's not trying to pitch you on investing in anything, so he can use whatever language he wants. The point of the blog post that I took was that it is illegal to mislead potential investors about your company.
- 7Figures2Commas 11y ago
  So in your mind the only reason one should use accurate language would be to avoid the risk of civil or criminal litigation? Fascinating.
  - vasilipupkin 11y ago
    why is market cap not accurate language? Even private companies have market caps. These market caps are set in the private markets. Market cap = # of shares outstanding * price of each share. Applies to both private and public companies
    - 7Figures2Commas 11y ago
      Please talk to somebody who works in finance. You will virtually never hear the term "market cap" used to describe the value of private companies. If you use this term in this context, it will be assumed that you don't know what you're talking about. There's a reason Sam updated the language in his post...

cm2012 11y ago

Considering there is probably a vintage effect, and currently 5% of YC companies are worth over $100 million, that means that most likely 5-10% of founders that join YC will become millionaires over time. That's pretty impressive.

JonFish85 11y ago
Keep in mind that there really haven't been many large exits, which lock in the valuations. I think YC is doing extraordinarily valuable things, but let's not get too blinded by big numbers. On-paper millionaires are one thing; actually being able to lock that money down is another thing entirely. Edit: Forgot a word.
cbr 11y ago
That's not a super high bar. Most of these founders could get $200k jobs at top tech companies, invest $100k/year, and be a millionaire in ~10 years. Much better than 10% odds!
- iaw 11y ago
  Founders also get paid well at startups once they've raised funds. There's a large difference between having a couple million dollars amassed as retirement savings and having millions amassed long before retirement. The lifestyles and opportunity spectrums are wildly different between the two.
- eachro 11y ago
  Investing 100k/year seems a bit much. With ~40% tax, the take home is closer to 120k. Add in Bay Area rent, leisure, random fixed costs(car insurance, significant others expenses, pets, etc) and its probably closer to 80k at best. Though, I do wonder, how feasible would it be to end up with a 2+mill nest egg(or however much you need to live off the gains) by ~35 and retire right then and there.

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snake117 11y ago

I keep reading that seed investment firms consider it "good" if 4 out of every 10 startups they fund turn out to be something of value. Over time this is showing to be true.

dude_abides 11y ago

Number of companies funded by YC that have shut down: ~300 Does this include aqui-hires? Also, would you know how many companies rejected by YC are worth more than $1 billion? Zero or non-zero? :)

smt88 11y ago
Why would it include acqui-hires? Companies rarely broadcast the fact that they're acqui-hiring, so it's not always a black-and-white issue. Also, saying a company was acqui-hired makes a VC look less successful, so they have an incentive not to be honest about it.

nicklovescode 11y ago

How many founders have gone through YC?

mattmanser 11y ago

As a clarification, by 'shutdown' do you mean failed, or does that include people who sold or were aquihired? Good to see the 90% of startups fail 'statistic' blown out the water with some facts!

frostmatthew 11y ago
> Good to see the 90% of startups fail 'statistic' blown out the water with some facts! If YC companies were representative of all startups there wouldn't be any point in going through YC.
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benologist 11y ago
~11% of their investments were in the last batch so I wouldn't read the ~30% dead rate as conclusive, a lot will need more time to die.

pesenti 11y ago

It would be great to get stats about exits as well. How many exits? Total valuation at exit? Median/average age at exit? etc.

harmegido 11y ago

Ok, so I did some quick numbers on performance. It looks like the first batch was in 2005, meaning ycombinator has been at this for 10 years. Have they always funded with 120k? Assuming that (and not present valuing the older money): Total Investment: ~$131,600,000 Total Companies Value: >$65,000,000,000 YCombinator's 7% Value: $4,550,000,000 Total Return: 3357% Annualized Return: 42.5% Obviously, it costs more than the initial investment, but these are really nice numbers if compared to a mutual fund, etc. Did I make any mistaken assumptions?

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npkarnik 11y ago
You're not factoring dilution in at all, for one. Also, the 120k is more recent.
sthomps 11y ago
Need to take into account dilution in subsequent fundings. So much less than 7%. #s are still out of this world though
nostrademons 11y ago
The $120K is only since 2014: https://blog.ycombinator.com/the-new-deal https://blog.ycombinator.com/the-new-deal From 2012-2014, YC companies received an automatic $85K follow-on investment from a syndicate of investors, though this was not funded by YC. From 2011-2012, they received an automatic $150K from Yuri Milner. From 2005-2011, it was $6K/founder (I think very early on, it was a flat $20K). So YC's capital expended has been a lot less over time than the current deal would reflect.
jnevelson 11y ago
Need to take dilution into account here. If we assume a (optimistic?) 1% stake, that's $650M. YC recently (1-2 years ago?) started giving 120k. Before that, it was 10-20k. So let's say half of what you said is the total investment = 65M. That's a 10X return. I actually was expecting higher. Am I missing something in my numbers?

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eloff 11y ago

I think there's a big elephant in the room here. Companies usually take time to fail, especially with VC funding. The companies from the newer batches are going to be skewing those fail statistics. If you only look at companies from 4 years ago and older, you might get a more realistic impression. It still won't be 90% though, but YC companies are widely known to not be representative. It's the highest profile accelerator, so it attracts the best talent. Just like people who graduate from Ivy League schools earn more on average, but mostly that's because they attract people who are above average to begin with.

bobbles 11y ago
But if they choose to provide stats each year thatll work out over time right? I mean you have to start somewhere

source99 11y ago

Is there a calculation for REAL ROI? Not based on current valuation but based on actual exits and money returned to YC?

BillFranklin 11y ago
Doesn't look like. But 5% of 65 billion is 3.25 billion. Nice ballpark stats.

sama 11y ago

Also, please do not take this as encouragement to start an accelerator. Accelerators on the whole are a terrible business, and we try to be up front about that with everyone who comes to us for advice.

roymurdock 11y ago
If the accelerator business on the whole is terrible, what sets Y Combinator apart and makes it a good company in a bad market - earning at 10% annual returns, 30% IRR as noted further up in the thread? Is it YC's human resources, position in the market, branding, some combination?
- myblake 11y ago
  It's got to be the position in the market at this point (though probably started out as human capital to get to that point). They're seeing most of the good deals for early stage companies because they're so far ahead anyone else in the space, which is obviously in your best interest in something where the best deals are several orders of magnitude better than a merely good deal and the average case is failure.
- sama 11y ago
  Our IRR was over 100% last time I calculated it; those numbers were really off.

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bachback 11y ago

see also: http://yclist.com http://yclist.com

mhartl 11y ago

Interesting to hear that eight YC companies are worth over $1b. I count Airbnb, Dropbox, Stripe, and Twitch for sure, and probably Weebly makes five. Any thoughts on what the others are?

bachback 11y ago
+probably coinbase
- MichaelGG 11y ago
  Depending how much they bought in when they started, they could have a huge gain just from the increase in BTC.
boling11 11y ago
Zenefits and Instacart for sure. Machine Zone is likely as well.
randall 11y ago
no inside info but i bet memsql is a lurker in that club.

netcan 11y ago

Stark reminder of how top heavy returns are. A lot of the talk and criticism about the startup world: valuation, investment, focusing on numbers other than revenue and such is ultimately explainable by going back to this. For a bit more, dropbox & AirBnb are worth 10 & 25 billion. That's over half the total $65bn from 2/940 companies, 0.21%. Even if we assume these stats grossly underestimate ultimate valuations because of most of the companies are still young, it's still likely to end at >50% of value from <1% individuals. This is for companies that get into YC, which is already a select group.

JonFish85 11y ago
Remember: until there's an "event", there are no "returns". Until a buyout or an acquisition happens, there's no money made except on paper.
- beambot 11y ago
  And after a liquidity event, the money is really just a bunch of electrons in a computer or magnetic domains on a disk somewhere...
  - davnicwil 11y ago
    Not sure why this is downvoted, it's a very interesting point. Equity in a privately-held company has value in precisely the same abstract sense that money has value. Both are tokens of, and therefore exchangeable for, real work. Why else do people take equity as part of compensation? I think what beambot is getting at here is the value of 'what you own' doesn't become any more or less real after you trade equity for money in a liquidity event. It's fundamentally just as abstract as it ever was, or will be.
    - beambot 11y ago
      Spot on. The only differences are risk, liquidity, and fungibility. But the "money" aspect is fairly abstract up until you're actually trying to spend/exchange it.

Mz 11y ago

Number of hardware + biotech + healthcare companies in the last batch: 32 Coolios. I take it YC has some initiative wrt biotech and healthcare and I missed it (cuz I am busy)?

jkw 11y ago

Which companies are the 8 that are worth >= $1 billion?

pbreit 11y ago
AirBnB, Dropbox, Stripe, Twitch, Zenefits, Instacart, Docker, Machine Zone. Not sure about the last one. Quora? Mixpanel? Edit: oops, that's 8 without Quora & Mixpanel. Machine Zone was surprising. Hadn't even heard of it.
- jkw 11y ago
  Looks like you've listed 8

pbreit 11y ago

Wow, 300 shutdowns. Does that include "acqui-hires"? Also pretty incredible that they're over 100 in this last batch.

BinaryIdiot 11y ago

Thanks for publishing these! They're pretty interesting and they certainly paint YCombinator in a really positive light. It would be pretty awesome to see a roll up regarding the failed companies and aggregated reasons why they failed. At a certain point you can only learn so much from other's failures but it would be interesting non-the-less.

kumarm 11y ago

(Since no one is pointing out Elephant in the room, I will do that). YC has been around for 10 years. Average age of a company from First Investment to IPO in 2014 is less than 10 years (http://lifescivc.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Time-From-VC-Investment-to-IPO_Feb2015.jpg http://lifescivc.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Time-From-VC... Source 1.) Personally, I believe startups excel when odds were stacks against us (forced to innovate and make founders strong and tested). I think YC or any incubator has a structure that shields companies from facing challenges initially. I don't think Incubators are proven to be a great Idea yet ( if you are someone with industry experience rather than a fresh graduate). 1. http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucebooth/2015/02/24/tortoise-hare-revisited-time-to-ipo-for-vc-backed-startups/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucebooth/2015/02/24/tortoise-h...

jkarneges 11y ago
VCs don't invest at the idea stage, so most initial funding comes from angels or accelerators (or bootstrapped because founders are already rich, but that doesn't count). Since having industry experience does not necessarily equate to having a vast angel network, accelerators fill in the gap.

amelius 11y ago

Over 900 companies, and all we're getting are 10 numbers? Am I missing something?

sheel 11y ago

It takes a long time to build a Unicorn... airbnb dropbox stripe twitch weebly machinezone were all funded >5 years ago... Unicorns in the past 5 years are Instacart and Zenefits (there will surely be others). In general it is hard to measure performance of the entire portfolio, much easier to measure performance of a class.

valhalla 11y ago

Does anyone know where one could find (if YC's published the stat) of the median/average age for the founders of the companies worth > $1 billion and $100 million?

downandout 11y ago

>This includes Twitch, which Amazon bought for ~970MM plus an earn-out. These kinds of companies with massive bandwidth costs rarely become profitable, and even if Twitch bucks the trend, Amazon could easily use Hollywood accounting to avoid any payments on the earn-out (for example, it could charge Twitch retail rates for use of AWS services). It strikes me as a bad decision to accept an earn-out when the overwhelming likelihood is that the clause will result in exactly $0 going to the former owners. Re: stats, 40 out of 940 are worth more than $100M. Dozens more are probably worth at least $25M. That is an insanely high success rate. The YC system works!

patio11 11y ago
That particular example aside, useful information for many HNers: Earn outs in tech are routinely earned out. They're negotiated with the assistance of very smart, very highly paid specialists, too. A fairly common outcome (anecdata from friends) is that the earnout is virtually in the bag at the 50% point and after that they are mildly frustrated with thumb-twiddling while waiting for the clock.
- loumf 11y ago
  From my anecdata, the acquiring company is using the earn-out as more of a test that what you are saying at acquisition time is true. It augments due-diligence. Meaning, if you are right about the business, these milestones are trivial to hit. If you don't accept the earn-out, it's a signal that something you are saying is either wrong or being misinterpreted.
qq66 11y ago
YouTube has massive bandwidth costs, and it became profitable. Bandwidth keeps getting cheaper, user attention maintains its value or gets more valuable over time.
- downandout 11y ago
  Which is why I said most companies with large bandwidth costs do not become profitable. YouTube eventually is one notable, glaring exception. But even they took years, billions of dollars in infrastructure investment and losses on bandwidth, access to a massive existing base of advertisers that already trusted its parent company, and arguably the best monetization team in the history of capitalism to achieve profitability.