3,000 miles away from Manhattan, nestled in the center of Mountain View, CA, Y Combinator makes its home as (arguably) the most prestigious startup incubator in the world.
The Silicon Valley powerhouse has been churning out strong cohorts of early-stage startups since 2005, with Reddit, DropBox and Airbnb among its roster of notable alumni. The biannual bootcamp offers two, three-month cycles to help young companies get off the ground, providing seed funding, counseling, emotional support and valuable introductions to tech’s biggest players.
Y Combinator’s program ends with a Demo Day, where each startup presents to hundreds of invite-only technology influencers. The demonstration can lead to millions in financing for the most-impressive startups, and funded or not, most of these companies remain in the Bay area.
However, this group of YC alumni migrated away from tech’s occidental promised land, and ventured east to New York City. Here are the Silicon Alley startups who started out as carefully-selected Y Combinator bets:
Cleanly offers on-demand laundry service (a New Yorker’s dream). The company will seamlessly pick up, clean and deliver your laundry and dry-cleaning. Cleanly scored $2.3 million in seed funding in May 2015.
Cohort: YC Winter 2015
Direct Match is the first fixed income US Treasury trading venue that will allow buy-side institutions to trade on the same terms as the sell-side. The platform gives participants anonymous and direct access to a unique and diverse liquidity pool. On January 7, the company raised a $6 million Series A.
Cohort: YC Winter 2015
Headquartered in Brooklyn, Level simplifies custom framing with its online platform. Using Level, you can easily frame your print or photo in five minutes or less.
Cohort: YC Winter 2015
Yhat is a data science technology company that provides tools and systems which allow enterprises to turn data insights into efficient, data-driven products. The company is the brainchild of two former data scientists at OnDeck who wanted to create a platform that helps engineers implement applications that data scientists create. The company was founded in 2013, and has since raised $2.62 million over 3 rounds.
Cohort: YC Winter 2015
Think Gaming allows mobile game developers to collaborate and share advertising data in order to find the best paying users. This solution helps developers with a great game get the same visibility as those with a large budget.
Cohort: YC Summer 2014
Cohort: YC Winter 2014
Apt Deco is an online marketplace for buying and selling vintage furniture. The company verifies its community of buyers and sellers, simplifying the process of paying for, picking up and delivering thrifted furniture.
Cohort: YC Winter 2014
Next Caller essentially offers Caller ID for businesses. The company helps enterprises identify unknown callers by providing the caller’s name, address and email.
Cohort: YC Winter 2014
If you travel a lot for work, chances are your company is going to utilize Rocketrip’s technology in the near future. Inspired in part by a platform that Google internally built to manage travel, Rocketrip helps companies earn 30 percent or more off its employees’ travel expenses. The platform sets real-time budgets for employee travel and rewards employees for spending less than budgeted, with incentives such as keeping half of the savings they generate. The company received $2 million in venture financing in September 2015.
Cohort: YC Winter 2014
You can stick Estimote’s tiny beacons in any location or object, such as on a shoe or on a bike, to connect your smartphone to the real world. The startup uses indoor location technology via small, wireless sensors to broadcast radio signals short distances to smartphones and other electronic devices. This month, Estimote raised a $10.7 million Series A financing on January 18, which will help the company scale its business into the retail sector.
Cohort: YC Winter 2014
Regalli allows immigrants to pay their family’s bills anywhere in the world using a mobile and web platform. Built by three U.S. immigrants, the company’s founders created the company after experiencing the costly, slow and non-transparent remittance process. Founded in 2012, Regalii has received $3 million in funding over three rounds.
Cohort: YC Winter 2014
Building an app? Errplane will help you monitor your app’s performance, feeding you details on its status via email, SMS, chatroom or web hook. You can also use Errplane to configure monitors to ensure that your site and API are up and responding, background workers are running, and jobs are being processed in a timely manner. The company received a $8.1 million Series A in December 2014.
Cohort: YC Winter 2013
Amicus is a volunteer recruiting platform for nonprofits. The company helps cause-driven organizations to leverage the social networks of their supporters, raise more money, attract more members and win more votes. Amicus nabbed a $3.2 million seed round in November 2012.
Cohort: YC Summer 2012
Fullstack Academy offers immersive, full-time courses in web development over 12 weeks. Through a combination of thorough admissions, a carefully crafted curriculum and top-notch instructors, Fullstack's program takes students with a basic understanding of programming and turns them into professional software engineers.
Cohort: YC Summer 2012
Eligible is a platform that makes it simple for healthcare engineers to pass and receive financial transactions with over 1,000 health insurance companies across the country. Eligible raised a seed round in January 2015 for an undisclosed amount.
Cohort: YC Summer 2012
Shoptiques is putting all unique, charming boutiques online. While one-of-a-kind boutiques typically don’t have a strong web presence, Shoptiques offers a vast inventory of the best boutiques from around the world. The company scored $2 million in seed funding in October 2012.
Cohort: YC Winter 2012
The Muse is a career resource that targets millennials. The company combines content, career opportunities and community into one platform to help Generation Y find jobs. The company raised a $10 million Series A in May 2015.
Cohort: YC Winter 2012
Genius started out as Rap Genius, a website for annotating rap lyrics. The company expanded to include all genres of music, as well as history, literature, news, sports movies and technology. The company eventually rebranded itself as Genius, an overarching online knowledge project that breaks down information. The Brooklyn-based company offers crowdsourced content on culture that can be added and edited by anyone in the world. Founded in 2009, the company has raised $56.9 million over four rounds.
Cohort: YC Winter 2012
Using quantitative analysis, RentHop simplifies the process of searching for an apartment. The company created “HopScore,” a proprietary algorithm that allows users to sift through a city’s available housing options. RentHop doesn't attach any broker fees, and provides full landlord addresses and contact information with each listing.
Cohort: YC Summer 2010
Octopart is a search engine that lets you search, compare prices, and view specifications for electronic parts. The platform is commonly used by engineers, scientists and sourcing professionals who use Octopart to search for parts across thousands of suppliers.
Cohort: YC Winter 2007
OMGPOP (formerly known as iminlikewithyou) was founded in 2006 and became a leading developer of social games for Facebook, iPhone and the Web. Since it was founded, the company has raised $16.6 million over five rounds. In 2012, OMGPOP was acquired by Zynga.
Cohort: YC Summer 2006
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