16 Companies from the YC Summer 2018 Batch

by Y Combinator8/17/2018

At YC, founders decide when they want to announce that they’re part of the program. Meet 16 of the companies who recently announced that they’re part of the YC Summer 2018 batch. See more companies from the S18 batch here, here and here.

LemonBox provides personalized daily vitamin packs for Chinese consumers, along with dietary advice from U.S. registered dietitians. All the products are made in the U.S. and shipped to customers within 7-10 days, based on a monthly subscription model. Read more about LemonBox in TechCrunch.

Bot M.D. is an A.I. clinical assistant designed for doctors living in emerging markets. The company provides doctors with instantaneous answers to questions about drugs, drug interactions and diseases and automatically transcribes dictated case notes. Any doctor with a smartphone can download Bot M.D., making it a highly affordable and scalable solution to help improve patient care in these markets. Read more about Bot M.D. in MobiHealthNews.

Optic is an AI that automates the routine parts of programming so developers can focus on their most important work. Optic saves 15 hours per developer per week. Teams can reclaim time by automating the parts of development they enjoy least. Read more about Optic in TechCrunch.

Synvivia develops biomolecular ON-OFF switches to make synthetic biology safe for use outside of the laboratory. Genetically engineered microorganisms can cure diseases, but biological complexity can make them unsafe for treating humans. Synvivia’s ON-OFF switches can control nearly any aspect of biological function, including survival, which means these organisms can be “switched OFF” and safely contained.

CSPA (Computer Science Proficiency Assessment) designs and administers a standardized exam for software engineers. It’s essentially the SAT for software engineers. Tests are held in classrooms on or near college campuses. The CSPA tests both academic and practical topics. Students sign up and pay to take the exam, and the assessment results are shared with employers. So far, there are over 60 companies using CSPA. As the founder and head of engineering at his previous startup, Crunchyroll, James Lin felt the pain of trying to hire great engineers. He spent a ton of time not only interviewing candidates, but also creating the interview questions. CSPA is his solution to that.

Kunduz is democratizing access to test prep by building a service that’s 10x cheaper and faster than traditional options. On Kunduz’s mobile app, a student takes a photo of a problem and Kunduz farms the solution out to its network of 7,000 tutors. Students typically get an explanation and answer within 10 minutes. They’re launched in Turkey and have solved 3 million questions asked by students across the country. The founding team attended a prestigious public high school and college in Turkey and witnessed a large discrepancy in university entrance exam preparation due to financial resources. They started Kunduz to level the playing field.

Grabb-it Inc. turns rideshare cars into digital billboards. The company installs a small device that transforms a car window into a digital screen, displaying content visible from outside the car. Advertisers get real-time campaign tracking, including campaign reach by location. Read more about Grabb-it Inc. in TechCrunch.

MAC’D is a fast-casual, build-your-own mac & cheese restaurant. Customers pick a cheese sauce, a pasta base, add unlimited toppings like roasted broccoli and mushrooms, and top it off with anything from truffle oil to Hot Cheetos. It’s a tech-focused restaurant, and after validating the food concept in SF, a city with extremely high labor and rent costs, they are looking to rapidly expand across the US and internationally. Read more about MAC’D in TechCrunch.

Shelf Engine eliminates waste for grocery/food retailers by managing their inventory. Using better demand forecasting with machine learning and robust data collection, Shelf Engine guarantees sales for retailers and cuts their waste in half. This generates nearly 10% increase in gross margin for the retailer. The company has 200+ customers including WeWork, University of Washington, Bartell Drugs, Ballast Coffee, Dynamo Donuts and Legacy Hospitals. Read more about Shelf Engine in TechCrunch.

Federacy is a bug bounty platform for startups. Startups get hacked daily because they don’t have the resources to properly secure themselves. Federacy enables them to work directly with some of the top security researchers in the world and only pay for results. Read more about Federacy in TechCrunch.

HappiLabs provides scientists with Virtual Lab Managers. They can do tasks like shopping for supplies and managing regulatory paperwork, so scientists can focus on solving the world’s problems. More than 350 scientists across 26 labs use the service. HappiLabs is bootstrapped, profitable, and generating over $1M/year in revenue. Their customers include biotech startups like Transcriptic and Perlara, academic labs at the University of Illinois, and a multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical company. Read more about HappiLabs in TechCrunch.

Klarity’s AI reads contracts to tell the user if they can sign right away or if they need to approve specific changes. Klarity captures clients’ preferences and uses them to review incoming NDAs, sales and vendor contracts. As a result, Klarity’s customers (which include NASDAQ-listed software companies and a Private Equity Fund) sign contracts faster, increase compliance and free up their lawyers’ time to work on more important things. Read more about Klarity in TechCrunch.

Inokyo is a cashierless autonomous retail store. Cameras track what you grab from the shelves, and with a single QR scan of the Inokyo app on your way in and out of the store, you’re charged for your items. Read more about Inokyo in TechCrunch.

Incentivai tests whether your smart contract will perform as expected. It uses Machine Learning agents that are human-like and capable of identifying new failure modes and allows you to see ahead of time how your system would behave once deployed. For example, if you’re building insurance on a blockchain, it will help you optimize fees and rewards to minimize the number of accepted false claims. Incentivai’s customers include prediction market protocol, Augur. Read more about Incentivai in TechCrunch.

Sterblue builds software that helps drones inspect power lines and wind turbines. Sterblue software guides drones along trajectories that wrap tightly around structures, finds anomalies from the collected images, and outputs reports. The whole process is automated and triggered by the click of a button, using off-the-shelf drones. Read more about Sterblue in TechCrunch

Mutiny helps SaaS companies personalize their website for each visitor to close more sales. For example, Mutiny can dynamically change a website’s customer testimonials to match the visitor’s industry. The company was founded by two early Gusto employees who grew Gusto’s customer base from 500 to 50,000. They learned how effective personalization was at converting users, but it was difficult to implement with existing technology. Mutiny helps companies personalize every step without any development work. Read more about Mutiny in TechCrunch

Author

  • Y Combinator

    Y Combinator created a new model for funding early stage startups. Twice a year we invest a small amount of money ($150k) in a large number of startups (recently 200). The startups move to Silicon