This Week in YC 1
Welcome to the first weekly series of Y Combinator startup updates!
It’s all started as a Twitter account YC Alert mentioning new startups that got into the latest Y Combinator batch. Soon after launching it, I noticed some startups update their information on YC Startup Directory, and sometimes it denotes major changes in their work: pivots, market expansions, team changes on C-level and metrics improvements.
This Week in YC is an attempt to form these data points into (possibly) valuable insights.
Feedback is indeed very welcome since I’m still on the way to figuring out the best possible representation of such information. Enjoy!
🌐 SaaS
Varos
Batch: S21
Location: San Francisco
Changes:
Industry
Before: B2B, Ecommerce, SaaS
After: B2B, SaaS
Headline
Before: Get real-time competitive & market intelligence via a data co-op
After: Planning software for marketing and finance teams with a twist
Description
Before: Varos is a real-time competitive and market intelligence data provider, powered by a data co-op. Companies send data directly via APIs, we anonymize & normalize it and they can see how their metrics compare against peers. This gives them insights on things such as what to double down on and what to fix. This data is rare and value, Varos' insights directly improve conversions, improve cost, raise their top-line, increase their bottom line
After: Varos is a planning software for marketing, product and finance teams that leverages our real-time competitor data to help guide key decisions. Companies today are flying blind because they only rely on their own historical data and don’t know how their metrics compare to their competitors. Varos increases revenue for our users by accurately showing them how their metrics compare against similar companies so they can decide which KPIs to double down on and which to spend time fixing. Planning software is a $21bn market with companies like Anaplan and Adaptive Insights achieving multi-billion dollar exits by making it easy to compare current performance against historical and set goals. Varos goes far beyond this by also leveraging this competitive data, and that’s why we’re going to be bigger than any of them.
Awesomic
Batch: S21
Location: Stamford, CT
Changes:
Description
Before: Awesomic matches companies with the vetted designers instantly. Companies pay a flat monthly subscription and get results every business day. We’ve already worked with 500+ companies worldwide; 85+ of them are YC startups. Once we joined the summer batch 2021, our revenue grew by 193% and the Awesomic team increased by 233%
After: Awesomic matches companies with the vetted designers instantly. Companies pay a flat monthly subscription and get results every business day, in 24 hours. We’ve already worked with 600+ companies worldwide; 100+ of them are YC startups. We tripled our revenue since April
Superpowered
Batch: W21
Location: San Francisco
Changes:
Headline
Before: Join Zoom meetings in one click
After: Manage your meetings and messages in one click
🏠 IoT
Proxy
Batch: S16
Location: San Francisco
Changes:
Industry
Before: Hard Tech, IoT
After: IoT, Security
Headline
Before: Creates a touchless workplace environment
After: Single sign-on for the physical world
Description
Before: Founded in 2016, we’re on a mission to create an identity signal for every person on the planet and making it universally accessible, secure, and private
After: Founded in 2016, we’re on a mission to remove friction from online and offline things you access every day. No more passwords, no more ID cards, no more keys, no more badges. Welcome to the future
HeyCharge
Batch: S21
Location: Munich, Germany
Changes:
Headline
Before: Low-cost, high-scale EV charging for apartment buildings
After: Low-cost, high-scale EV charging platform for apartments (and more)
🏥 Health
Verse Medical
Batch: S18
Location: New York
Changes:
Headline
Before: Amazon for medical products, starting with contact lenses
After: Amazon for medical supplies
Description
New: Verse Medical is a software-driven medical supplier. Products like catheters, wound dressings, diabetes supplies, etc. aren't sold through pharmacies. Instead, $50B+ of these products are ordered by doctors for their patients via fax every year. We're bringing this market online. Our team has built software that makes the process of ordering and managing medical supplies dramatically easier, both for patients and for clinics. We currently work with patients and hospitals across the United States. We're backed by some of the best investors in technology and healthcare and have ambitious expansion plans. It's a particularly exciting time to join the company as we're aggressively expanding the team
MindFi
Batch: S21
Location: Singapore
Changes:
Description
Before: MindFi is an app that reduces burnout and improves mental health for employees. We sell to companies in Asia such as Deutsche Bank, KPMG, PatSnap, Visa. Our annual revenue is US $150k to date and we’re growing 20% month on month. The team is headquartered in Singapore and consists of Bjorn, (ex-Zendesk product manager), psychologist Anita Sadasivan (UMich alum, ex-Raffles Hospital), Leon 2X startup founder with 2 exits and Gangeshwar, an award-winning AI engineer
After: MindFi is an app that reduces burnout and improves mental health for employees. We sell to companies in Asia such as Deutsche Bank, KPMG, PatSnap, Visa. Our annual revenue is US $150k to date and we’re growing 53% month on month. The team is headquartered in Singapore and consists of Bjorn, (ex-Zendesk product manager), psychologist Anita Sadasivan (UMich alum, ex-Raffles Hospital), Leon 2X startup founder with 2 exits and Gangeshwar, an award-winning AI engineer
💰 FinTech
Compound
Batch: S19
Location: San Francisco
Changes:
Headline
Before: Compound does financial management for people who work at and invest in technology companies
After: Compound is a family office for startup founders and employees
Advantage Club
Batch: S21
Location: Gurugram, India
Changes:
Description
Before: Advantage Club is a global platform for employee benefits and financial wellness including perks, rewards and early wage access. We are currently live with 370+ companies across 60+ countries and have a monthly revenue of $190,000+. Our revenue has grown 5x in the last 13 months
After: Advantage Club is a global platform for employee benefits and financial wellness including perks, rewards and early wage access. We are currently live with 370+ companies across 60+ countries and have a monthly revenue of $230,000+. Our revenue has grown 6x in the last 14 months
Búho Contable
Batch: S21
Location: Monterrey, Mexico
Changes:
Description
Before: Búho Contable is a tax filing and accounting platform for micro and small businesses in LATAM
After: Búho Contable is a tax filing and accounting platform for micro and small businesses in México
🌳 Carbon
Heimdal
Batch: S21
Location: Oxford, United Kingdom
Changes:
Job Openings
New
Electrical Engineer - Carbon Capture in Hawaii
Systems Engineer - Carbon Capture in Hawaii
Landing Page
Before: Web Archive
After: Web Archive
🛒 E-Commerce
Rivia.AI
Batch: S21
Location: Bengaluru, India
Changes:
Headline (1)
Before: Same day deliveries for D2C brands across India
After: Two day deliveries for D2C brands across India
Headline (2)
Before: Two day deliveries for D2C brands across India
After: Amazon Level Logistics for D2C Brands in India
🥦 FoodTech
Flint
Batch: S20
Location: Vancouver, Canada
Changes:
Industry
Before: Delivery
After: Computer Vision, Machine Learning
Name
Before: Oco Meals
After: Flint
Headline
Before: Delivering prepared meals for your week from local catering companies
After: Flexport for the wholesale of food
Description
Before: Oco Meals is a platform that delivers prepared meals from local catering companies. We are the most convenient way to get a fresh meal - like a personal chef, but starting at $40/week
After: Flint is a local buying collective and purchasing service for Food Wholesale. We compare dozens of wholesalers and get exactly what you need while never missing out on any savings
🧠 Artificial Intelligence
Generally Intelligent
Batch: S17
Location: San Francisco
Changes:
Status
Before: Inactive
After: Active
Description
Before: Generally Intelligent is an early-stage AI research company working directly on building human-level general machine intelligence that can learn naturally in the that way humans do. Our mission is to understand the fundamentals of learning and build safe, humane machine intelligence
After: Generally Intelligent is an AI research company. We help machines learn to understand the world the way humans do. Our mission is to build human-like general machine intelligence and make it safely accessible in order to foster a more abundant, equitable, and creative human society. We take a first-principles approach to understanding the fundamentals of learning, starting with simple self-supervised networks solving early evolutionary problems, and increasing complexity incrementally
Job Openings
Before
Deep Learning Engineer - Contract, Remote in Remote
Deep Learning Engineer - Full-Time, Remote or SF in SF / Remote
After