This Week in YC 5
Welcome to the 5th weekly series of Y Combinator startup updates!
This Week in YC is an attempt to form major Y Combinator startups changes such as pivots, market expansions, team changes on C-level and metrics improvements 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
Flow Club
Virtual WeWork for Deep Work
Batch: S21
Changes:
Description
Before: …
After: … We’re growing quickly, just presented at Y Combinator's Summer 2021 Demo Day, raised $5M, and hiring our founding team. We are backed by Worklife Ventures, a firm investing in companies re-designing the way work gets done in the future, and 100 more of the world's best investors and operators. Among our investors are Paul Graham and the founders of iconic companies like Dropbox, Mercury, Quora, Outschool, and Sendbird. Finally, we are inspired by our members and hosts who we see everyday working out of Flow Club building the most incredible things. They remind us great things are built incrementally, one step at a time.
Operator
Customer financial data platform
Batch: W20
Changes:
Headline
Before: Data Automation Platform
After: Customer financial data platform
Description
Before: Operator enables any SQL user to build powerful apps without coding
After: Operator helps developers integrate and operationalize data from sources like Shopify, Stripe, and Quickbooks Online. We make it easy to collect, query, and sync financial data in one place, keeping all internal tools and apps up to date
🕹 Gaming
Heroic Story
Who Wants to be a Millionaire meets Dungeons & Dragons
Batch: S19
Changes:
Industry
Before: Cloud Gaming, eLearning, Gaming
After: Cloud Gaming, Entertainment, Gaming
Name
Before: Wordloops
After: Heroic Story
Headline
Before: The metaverse for writers
After: Who Wants to be a Millionaire meets Dungeons & Dragons
Description
Before: Wordloops is a virtual community for writers to build their habit and improve their skills. Our goal is to provide high quality training to writers of all levels, from beginner to expert. We're doing this by building a fun and motivating social experience inside a virtual world
After: Heroic Story is mix of Who Wants to be a Millionaire and Dungeons & Dragons. It's a new kind of game, where writers build stories together and win points from each other for the best ideas. We broadcast the whole thing live on Discord, and at the end mint an NFT with the story and characters, and the writers own it and share in the profit
SenpAI.GG
Personal gaming coach for PC gamers globally
Batch: S21
Changes:
Description
Before: … The company is Boston-based and founded by Olcay Yilmazcoban (MIT researcher & gamer) and Berk Ozer (engineer & gamer). We have 450K monthly active users worldwide and grew by 21% CMGR over the last six months. We raised $3M seed funding (ACT Venture Partners) and we are in the Summer 2021 Batch of Y Combinator
After: … The company is Boston-based and founded by Olcay Yilmazcoban (MIT researcher & gamer) and Berk Ozer (engineer & gamer). We raised $3M seed funding (ACT Venture Partners) and we are in the Summer 2021 Batch of Y Combinator
🧑💻 Developer Tools
Mattermost
Open source developer collaboration platform
Batch: S12
Changes:
Headline
Before: Open source, self-hosted Slack-alternative
After: Open source developer collaboration platform
Description
Before: …
After: … Founded in 2016, Mattermost’s open source platform powers over 800,000 workspaces worldwide with the support of over 4,000 contributors from across the developer community. The company serves over 800 customers, including European Parliament, NASA, Nasdaq, Samsung, SAP, United States Air Force and Wealthfront, and is backed by world-class investors including Battery Ventures, Redpoint, S28 Capital, YC Continuity
Landing Page
Before: Web Archive
After: Web Archive
GitLab
A complete DevOps platform delivered as a single application
Batch: W15
Changes:
Status
Before: Active
After: Public
webapp.io
Review code changes like Facebook does
Batch: S20
Changes:
Headline
Before: Preview environments for full‑stack webapps
After: Review code changes like Facebook does
Description
Before: webapp.io creates hosted full-stack preview environments in seconds using memory snapshots. We've helped dozens of YC companies set up per-commit review environments & e2e testing. If your team is building a webapp + using github/gitlab/bitbucket, we might be useful to you!
After: Merge changes in hours instead of days. Webapp.io embeds new full-stack review environments directly into every pull request. If your team is building a webapp + using github/gitlab/bitbucket, talk to us! founders@webapp.io
Landing Page
Before: Web Archive
After: Web Archive
MockVisual
Visual communication platform for the web
Batch: S19
Changes:
Name
Before: NextUX
Active: MockVisual
Description
Before: A simple visual editor for teams to add feedback, create designs, and iterate on websites and web apps
After: Create, collaborate, and communicate visually on digital experiences with your team. MockVisual helps you capture screenshots, annotate, and share
📚 Education
Paragon One
Professional experiences for any student
Batch: W17
Changes:
Headline
Before: Turning real company work into flexible online classrooms for students
After: Professional experiences for any student
Description
Before: Paragon One connects large numbers of students to employers through industry relevant projects called Remote Externships, thereby making it easier for students to build professional experiences while also engaging with company employees. For enterprise customers who need to scale and engage their early talent pipeline, Paragon One’s platform saves companies including Facebook, PwC, Hewlett-Packard, National Geographic, Snapchat, and Cloudflare time and money while helping them increase brand engagement and achieve DE&I targets. Paragon One has served thousands of students while growing 200% year over year. Paragon One also powers experiential learning for educational institutions and organizations such as Purdue University, Case Western Reserve, Colorado College, Thrive Scholars, Junior Achievement Worldwide, The Opportunity Network, and ACS International. Our platform is designed to onboard companies quickly while providing access to numerous project workflows in areas such as product, strategy, marketing, business development, finance, and data analytics. Students learn from companies while receiving support from teaching assistants and collaborating with other students on solutions to problems. We save companies 7 figures and thousands of manager hours per year compared to running similar student programs in-house by limited the time companies invest to one manager hour per week and limiting the need for HR time. Paragon One was founded by MIT alums and backed by YCombinator, Foundation Capital, University Ventures, Learn Capital, and Jason Calacanis
After: Paragon One makes it easy for students to build professional experience with Remote Externships -- industry relevant projects that scale between companies and students. Paragon One’s platform saves companies time and money while helping them increase brand engagement and achieve DE&I targets. Unlike traditional recruiting or workforce platforms, Paragon One is turnkey – we do the heavy lifting of engaging more student talent at the top of the funnel so companies can focus on building. Over the past year, Paragon One has served over 1,300 students through remote externships while growing quarterly revenue 200% YoY. In 2021, Paragon One is hosting remote externships for Facebook, PwC, Pfizer, National Geographic, HP, Snapchat, Cloudflare, and The Nature Conservancy. Paragon One is backed by YCombinator, Foundation Capital, Learn Capital, and University Ventures
🏥 Health
Newfront Insurance
Modern insurance brokerage
Batch: W18
Changes:
Status
Before: Active
After: Acquired
🥦 FoodTech
Cache
Online convenience stores fulfilled by tiny, automated dark stores
Batch: S21
Changes:
Status
Before: Active
After: Inactive
🏘 Housing
Union Apartment
Furnished Co-living Apartments for International Students, here in the US
Batch: W19
Changes:
Status
Before: Active
After: Inactive