YC turns builders
into formidable founders[1]
Airbnb

Brian, Joe, and Nate did YC in W09.

Airbnb went public in 2020 at an over $100B valuation.

YC
Now
OpenAI

Sam was part of YC's inaugural batch in S05 and founded OpenAI as YC Research in 2015.

Sam built OpenAI into a $500B company.

YC
Now
Stripe

The Collison brothers did YC twice—first in W07 and then in S09, when they started Stripe.

Stripe is now the internet’s $107B payments backbone.

YC
Now
Coinbase

Fred and Brian met on Reddit and did YC in S12.

Coinbase went public in 2021 at a $86B valuation.

YC
Now
DoorDash

Andy, Stanley, Tony, and Evan did YC in S13.

DoorDash went public in 2020 at a valuation of $39B.

YC
Now
Scale AI

Alexandr and Lucy did YC S16 and pivoted during the batch.

In 2025, Meta acquired 49% of Scale for over $14B.

YC
Now
Dropbox

Arash and Drew started Dropbox at MIT and did YC in S07.

Dropbox had the biggest tech IPO of 2018 at a $9B valuation.

YC
Now
Reddit

Alexis and Steve were in the inaugural YC batch in S05.

Reddit went public in 2024 at a $6.4B valuation.

YC
Now
Instacart

Apoorva, Max, and Brandon did YC in S12.

Instacart went public in 2023 at a $10B valuation.

YC
Now
GitLab

Sid and Dmytro did YC in S14.

GitLab went public in 2021 at an $11B valuation.

YC
Now
Kalshi

Tarek and Luana did YC in W19.

Kalshi reached an $11B valuation in 2025.

YC
Now
Replit

Amjad and Haya interviewing for the YC W18 batch.

Replit became a leading AI coding platform valued at over $3B.

YC
Now
Twitch

Michael, Justin, Kyle, and Emmett in YC W07.

Twitch was acquired by Amazon for nearly $1B.

YC
Now

[1] A formidable person is one who seems like theyll get what they want, regardless of whatever obstacles are in the way. — Paul Graham

In 2005, Y Combinator developed a new model of startup funding. Four times a year we invest $500k in a select group of startups. They move to San Francisco for three months, where we work intensively with them to get the company into the best possible shape, before they present to a large audience of investors on Demo Day.

But YC doesnt end on Demo Day. We and the YC alumni network continue to help founders for the life of their company, and beyond.

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In Founders’ Words

YC compresses months of growth into weeks.The sense of urgency is so infectious among founders that it becomes the most productive period in most people’s lives.
It’s a community of founders that you can’t find anywhere else.It feels like having the entire world at your back—from Partners to batchmates.
Being surrounded by the top 1% of founders in the world just completely resets the bar.You leave with a completely new sense of how fast ‘fast’ can be.

Be in the room with …

Brian CheskyAirbnb
Sam AltmanOpenAI
Greg BrockmanOpenAI
Michael TruellCursor
Paul GrahamY Combinator
Guillermo RauchVercel
Dylan FieldFigma
Emmett ShearTwitch
Tony XuDoorDash

All partners were
YC founders first

Knowledge & News

It's never too early to apply.

We fund companies with no revenue, product, or fully baked idea.

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