ycombinator.com/library. Over the last 15 years, YC has invested in and worked with more than 2,000 companies, and we’ve seen and learned from their successes and failures. The library consolidates the knowledge and advice we’ve previously published and provides a central location for new content. We strive to make entrepreneurship more accessible, and hope that by sharing our knowledge publicly, we can support the founder community more broadly.</p>\n<p>The new library is the perfect complement to <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.startupschool.org/">Startup School</a>, our free online program and global community for founders. One of the most common requests we get from Startup School participants is that we provide more content than what is currently in the curriculum. From <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/library/6z-safe-financing-documents/">fundraising document templates</a>, to tips on <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/library/6q-how-to-pitch-your-startup/">how to pitch</a>, to strategies for <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/library/6w-covid-19-tips-for-startups/">navigating COVID</a> — we hope that our library offers something useful to every founder.</p>\n<p>Please check it out and reach out to <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/\"mailto:catheryn@combinator.com\">catheryn@ycombinator.com with any feedback or suggestions!</p>\n<!--kg-card-end: html-->","comment_id":"1104408","feature_image":null,"featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2020-08-06T02:00:42.000-07:00","updated_at":"2021-10-20T10:52:36.000-07:00","published_at":"2020-08-06T02:00:42.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71081","name":"Catheryn Li","slug":"catheryn","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/10/catheryn.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Catheryn (Cat) is a Product Engineer at YC focused on Startup School. Before that she was an engineer at Instagram and Facebook. Cat has a B.S. in Computer Science and Math from MIT.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/catheryn/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71081","name":"Catheryn Li","slug":"catheryn","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/10/catheryn.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Catheryn (Cat) is a Product Engineer at YC focused on Startup School. 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When you sign up, you tell us about yourself and what you’re looking for, and we show you profiles that most closely match your ideal co-founder. If you message a candidate and they accept, we match the two of you.</p><p>Co-founder matching has also seen success with brand-new companies. Two pairs of co-founders met through the platform earlier this year, worked together on trial projects, became fully committed co-founders, applied to YC, and were accepted into the Summer 2021 batch!</p><p><strong><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.sequincard.com//">Sequin (YC S21) is one of these companies. Vrinda Gupta had left her job after launching credit cards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve at Visa to work on a product to help women build credit. She spent a year working as a solo founder, and, in that time, raised a pre-seed and built an MVP. She knew she needed a technical co-founder who was mission driven, had fintech expertise, and was in it for the long haul.</p><figure class=\"kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption\"><img src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://blog.ycombinator.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Sequin.jpeg/" class=\"kg-image\" alt loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption>Sequin (YC S21) co-founders, Vrinda Gupta and Mark Thomas.</figcaption></figure><p>That person was Mark Thomas. He had ten years of engineering experience at Paypal, cared deeply about gender equity, and spent six years as CTO of family-oriented startups. They had an instant connection and arranged to meet in person soon after. 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She had a founding scientist to tackle R&D, but wanted a co-founder to help her build a consumer brand and commercialize the product.</p><figure class=\"kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption\"><img src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://blog.ycombinator.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/kiwi.jpeg/" class=\"kg-image\" alt loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption>Anjie Liu and David Hachuel, co-founders of Kiwi Biosciences (YC S21).</figcaption></figure><p>When Anjie saw David Hachuel’s profile on YC co-founder matching, she knew that he was “exactly what [she] was looking for.” David had previously sold a startup in the same space, and was immediately interested in her idea.</p><p>They took a very structured approach to co-founder matching. Both founders answered all 50 questions posed in <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://proof-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/firstround/50 Questions for Co-Founders.pdf/">First Round’s co-founder questionnaire</a>. They found deep alignment on “all the important things” (conflict resolution, vision for culture, etc.). When their month-long trial ended and it came time to say go or no-go, the decision was easy.</p><p>Anjie and David worked remotely for four months and finally met in person after getting into YC. They went through YC and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/14/kiwi-bio-aims-to-free-irritable-bowel-syndrome-sufferers-from-restrictive-diets//">raised $1.5M</a>.</p><p>We’re ecstatic about the companies who met through our co-founder matching and we’re excited to see the platform continue to grow and support more awesome founders in the future!</p><p>Looking for a co-founder? Check out the platform at <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://blog.ycombinator.com/does-co-founder-matching-work/www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching/">www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching.","comment_id":"61a505fbcf1ec1000121a57c","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2021/12/BlogTwitter-Image-Template--11-.png","featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2021-11-29T08:55:23.000-08:00","updated_at":"2024-10-23T02:26:59.000-07:00","published_at":"2021-11-24T08:55:00.000-08:00","custom_excerpt":"Read about how the founders of Seer, Sequin, and Kiwi Biosciences used YC’s co-founder matching platform to complete their founding team.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71081","name":"Catheryn Li","slug":"catheryn","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/10/catheryn.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Catheryn (Cat) is a Product Engineer at YC focused on Startup School. 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When you sign up, you tell us about yourself and what you’re looking for, and we show you profiles that most closely match your ideal co-founder. If you message a candidate and they accept, we match the two of you.","reading_time":2,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"63f91878d2b0220001e8d6e9","uuid":"a99f2458-1bdd-4a40-81e6-36ee441b133c","title":"Congratulations to the 2023 YC Top Companies!","slug":"yc-top-companies-feb-2023","html":"<p>We’re excited to present the 2023 YC Top Companies!</p><p>The startups are separated into 3 lists: YC’s top <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/topcompanies/" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">private</a>, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/topcompanies/public/" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">public</a>, and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/topcompanies/exits/" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">exited</a>. Private companies and exits are sorted by the company's valuation from their latest funding round, and all are valued at over $150M. Public companies are listed in alphabetical order.</p><p>The Breakthrough Companies list highlights the fast-growing companies we’ve doubled down on – which means they’ve all received significant additional investment from YC in their post-Demo Day rounds. </p><p><strong>Here are stats about the companies on this year’s list:</strong></p><p><strong>></strong> More than 290 private YC companies and 33 exits are valued at over $150M, over 90 are worth more than $1B, and 16 are public. </p><p><strong>></strong> 58% of the companies have HQs in the Bay Area. 27% of the companies are fully remote, and 55% list themselves as partially remote.</p><p><strong>></strong> YC Top Companies have HQs in 40 countries including: United States, India, United Kingdom, Canada, Colombia, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, France, Spain, Israel, Netherlands, Philippines, Portugal, Germany, Egypt, Ireland, South Korea, Peru, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, Australia, Bolivia, Switzerland, Algeria, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Romania, Sweden, Senegal, Uganda, Uruguay, Venezuela, Vietnam</p><p><strong>></strong> YC W16 is the most represented batch (by percentage). 23% of the companies from W16 are on the YC Top Companies list. </p><p><strong>></strong> Here’s a sector breakdown of the top companies:</p><ul><li>B2B Software and Services: 43%</li><li>Financial Technology and Services: 19%</li><li>Consumer: 13%</li><li>Healthcare: 12%</li><li>Industrials: 7%</li><li>Real Estate and Construction: 3%</li><li>Education and Government: 3%</li></ul><p><strong>></strong> 10 new companies joined the lists since August 2022:</p><p>Private:</p><ul><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/treasury-prime/">Treasury Prime</a> (YC W18) - Embedded banking software platform and marketplace</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/onesignal/">OneSignal (YC S11) - Engage customers through personalized omni-channel messaging</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/skill-lync/">Skill-lync (YC W19) - Online engineering college for India</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/tigereye/">TigerEye (YC S22) - Modern enterprise software for sales leaders</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/zeitview/">Zeitview (YC W15) - Inspection software for renewable energy & sustainable infrastructure</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/ontop/">OnTop (YC W21) - A bank for remote workers connected to payroll</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/obie/">Obie (YC S19) - Insurance and risk management for landlords</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/nabis/">Nabis (YC W19) - The largest licensed cannabis wholesale platform</li></ul><p>Public:</p><ul><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/presto/">Presto (YC S10) - Digital meets physical for big chain restaurants</li></ul><p>Exits:</p><ul><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/nurx/">NURX (YC W16) - Medicine or testing kit, prescribed online, and delivered to your door </li></ul><p>One thing to note is that this is not an exhaustive list of YC’s top companies. 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Companies!","reading_time":2,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"6335a9276c330f000113fa77","uuid":"b5d30051-751f-4231-bac3-84aa004a3e80","title":"Women Engineers in Startups: Tess's Story","slug":"women-engineers-in-startups-tess","html":"<p>Last year we launched the first *<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/events/yc-women-eng-in-startups-2022/">Women Engineers in Startups</a> series, and our goal was to encourage more women to consider working at high-growth startups.</p><p>Why?</p><p>At YC, most of us have worked at or started startups, and they’ve changed our lives for the better. We’ve seen, firsthand, the impact they can have on one’s life and career. The amount you learn is immense, and a lot of early startup employees go on to start their own companies. </p><p>We believe the opportunity should be explored by every hard working, ambitious person.</p><p>Yet, when we spoke to our founders, we learned that very few women engineers apply for jobs at YC companies. We wondered whether there were misconceptions about startups that we could help clear up, or whether there were resources we could build to connect more women to startup opportunities. </p><p>So, we brought together a cohort of women engineers and introduced them to YC founders, engineering managers, recruiters and women who had joined YC startups as early engineers. They came together for three weeks, learned about what startups are looking for, what the work/life balance was like at various companies, and what they should think about and ask when considering companies and roles. </p><p>At the end of the first session, we were delighted to see a few women from that first cohort accept roles at YC companies. </p><p>One participant in that first cohort, Tess Huelskamp, accepted a role at <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/middesk/">Middesk (YC W19), a fast-growing company that helps b2b financial services companies verify business customers. She shared her experience and advice for thinking about joining a startup here: </p><blockquote><em>Prior to working at my startup Middesk, I worked for a few years on Dropbox's Sharing team on a lot of backend changes to make it easier to share files and folders within Dropbox. </em><br><br><em>After a few years at Dropbox, I had learned a lot about how to build and ship code, but my learning was slowing. I always knew that I wanted to work at a startup before I moved home to the Midwest, and I figured this was the time to do it.</em><br><br><em>Before participating in the YC Women Eng in Startup series I didn't know a lot about the startup lifecycle. I didn't know what \"pre-\" vs. \"post-seed\" meant and I didn't know what type of work startups do as they move from trying to find product-market fit to scaling up their company. It helped me better identify the stage and type of company I wanted to work at.</em><br><br><em>When I started my job search, I knew I wanted to work at a post-Series A company that had a great culture, healthy work-life balance, and an interesting product. I found Middesk through the </em><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.workatastartup.com//">Work at a Startup</em></a><em> job board and took an informational call to learn more. As I was interviewing, I got a great vibe from the team at Middesk and respected all of the people I talked to.</em><br><br><em>I've been happily surprised with the breadth of work I've been able to do at an earlier stage company.</em><br><br><em>Established companies already have a lot of key features built, so the impact you can have is limited to improving an already existing feature. At an earlier stage company, I've been able to have a huge impact on my company by scaling, improving core business flows and also building multiple features from the ground up.</em><br><br><em>Earlier in my career, I was scared to move to a startup because I didn't think that I knew enough about engineering to be able to contribute to a startup. If I were to do my career over again, I would've left a larger company as soon as I felt my growth stalling out, because I could've easily handled working at a startup once I had learned how to ship projects at a larger company.</em></blockquote><p><strong>We’re hosting the second Women Engineers in Startups series this fall. Learn more about it </strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/women-engineers-in-startups/">here.
We’re excited to announce the launch of the YC Startup Library, found at ycombinator.com/library. Over the last 15 years, YC has invested in and worked with more than 2,000 companies, and we’ve seen and learned from their successes and failures. The library consolidates the knowledge and advice we’ve previously published and provides a central location for new content. We strive to make entrepreneurship more accessible, and hope that by sharing our knowledge publicly, we can support the founder community more broadly.
The new library is the perfect complement to Startup School, our free online program and global community for founders. One of the most common requests we get from Startup School participants is that we provide more content than what is currently in the curriculum. From fundraising document templates, to tips on how to pitch, to strategies for navigating COVID — we hope that our library offers something useful to every founder.
Catheryn (Cat) is a Product Engineer at YC focused on Startup School. Before that she was an engineer at Instagram and Facebook. Cat has a B.S. in Computer Science and Math from MIT.
![](https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/09/6.jpg/")
