Who is Y Combinator?
Y Combinator, usually called YC, is the world’s best-known startup accelerator. Paul Graham, Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris and Trevor Blackwell started it in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2005, with a simple idea: fund a group of startups at the same time, give them a few months of intense advice, and finish with a Demo Day where they pitch investors 1.
It has since funded more than 5,000 companies, including Airbnb, Stripe, Dropbox, Reddit, DoorDash, Coinbase, Instacart, Twitch and GitLab. Scale AI, started by Alexandr Wang, went through YC in 2016.
The YC deal
Since 2022 YC has offered every company the same terms: $125,000 for 7% of the company, plus $375,000 on an uncapped SAFE that converts on the terms of the next priced round. That adds up to $500,000 per company 1.
| Part of the deal | Amount | What YC gets |
|---|---|---|
| Standard investment | $125,000 | 7% of the company |
| MFN SAFE | $375,000 | Converts at the next round’s terms |
| Total | $500,000 |
How a batch works
YC used to run two batches a year, Winter and Summer. From 2025 it moved to four: Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall. Founders spend about three months building, meeting partners weekly and talking to other founders in the batch, then present at Demo Day. Acceptance rates are around 1% of applications 1.
Who runs YC
Paul Graham handed over in 2014 to Sam Altman, who ran YC until 2019 before leaving to lead OpenAI. Garry Tan, a former YC partner and the co-founder of Initialized Capital, has been president and CEO since January 2023.
YC and India
Indian founders are one of YC’s largest groups outside the US. Razorpay (Winter 2015), Meesho (Summer 2016), Groww and the quick-commerce app Zepto all went through the programme.
