Who Are This Year's Y Combinator Winners?

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DucklingsSnow.jpgTeam SAI may have been the only people on the East Coast who weren't at the Y Combinator Demo Day in Cambridge yesterday. Union Square Ventures' Fred Wilson flew in from San Francisco, and met up with frequent co-investor Bijan Sabet from Spark Capital; so did Betaworks' Andy Weissman and a gaggle of other potential investors in Paul Graham's proteges. Who else went? Pretty much everyone, Xconomy reports:

The house was full—I spotted four folks from General Catalyst, including managing directors David Orfao and Joel Cutler; Akamai co-founder Jonathan Seelig, now a managing director of Globespan Capital Partners; Venrock’s David Beisel; Jo Tango of Kepha Partners; Don Dodge of Microsoft; and some 80-plus representatives from Google, Walt Disney, and a host of other firms.

Leigh Zarelli was there from New York: she said her firm, Walt Disney, was stepping up its early-stage acquisitions. My favorite out-of-town tale came from Stephanie Robesky of London-based Atomico (founded by some of the Skype and Kazaa founders), who told me that she only discovered yesterday that the event was in Cambridge, MA, and not Cambridge, England. That sent her scurrying for a last-minute airplane ticket.

We also have a roster of yesterday's 21 presenters, courtesy of TechCrunch. What we don't know: Who stood out, for better or for worse? We talked to one cranky attendee who told us he was unimpressed with the entire lineup. But surely someone was worth talking about there, right? Sound off in comments, or ping us using our anonymous tip box.



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22 Comments

Paul Graham (URL) said:
I bet your "cranky attendee" had not been to a YC demo day before. Statistically it's almost certain there will be startups in this batch that go on to be highly regarded. There have been in every previous batch. And since the quality of YC applicants has been increasing, it would be surprising if there weren't in this one.

It's a rare skill to be able to judge startups at 10 weeks. I know because I've spent the last 3 years trying to acquire it. Most people who attempt to perform this feat are, like the cranky attendee (and 200 TechCrunch trolls), doomed by not even realizing they lack this skill. But the fact is, most people who'd seen Google at 10 weeks would have thought they were lame too.

Hi Paul! Thanks for checking in. I must report, though, that said cranky attendee has been to multiple YC demo days, so the attendee was comparing apples to apples. Obviously, that's just one attendee's opinion, which is why we're soliciting more.

Paul Graham (URL) said:
Wow, really? That's odd. Most of the investors who'd been to previous demo days told us they liked this batch, because so many of the companies seemed "serious" (i.e. had immediate plans for making money).

Yep, really. Different strokes...

this was my first demo day, and it was definitely the strongest batch of co's i have seen (i have previously talked to several yc co's post yc funding). particularly liked posterous and ticketstumbler. great to see a handful of companies with a clear path/plan to revenues in addition to a well designed user experience and product.

brandon m. (URL) said:
I think that this is one of the best batch of yc companies yet. Posterous is really cool, PopCuts has a interesting music model, TicketStumbler is sure to change the way people search for tickets, and co2stats is super creative. Overall, most of the YC companies i've checked out season are all doing something unique and creative.

John Borthwick said:
Peter -- you should come up and witness a YC day.

There are few events like this in our industry. The focus on products, the drive for innovation matched with raw smarts and passion is always worth the time. I think I have gone to practically all of them and -- always some stars that come out, trick is picking them out. But that's my job.


Don Dodge (URL) said:
I have been to several Ycombinator Investor Days. There are always a few stars. In years past they were Reddit, Xobni, Omnisio, Zenter, etc.

This year I liked TicketStumbler,Job Alchemist, and Frog Metrics. There are several others that are in stealth mode that I can't talk about yet.

Next week I will be at TechStars, another startup incubator styled on the Ycombinator model. TechStars had an exit out of last years batch. SocialThing was acquired by AOL.

Startup incubators are a very different model for tech investing. Most VCs don't see companies this early. Some get it...and some don't.

Scott Kirsner (URL) said:
Peter-

You should go. Presentations are great - very pithy, and no b.s. "market size" slides like you see with most PowerPoint pitches.

My favorites were Picwing (WiFi-connected digital photo frames with simple software interface for content delivery), CO2Stats (helping Web sites assuage their guilt by neutralizing their carbon footprint), and Posterous (making it super-easy to maintain a blog.)

I posted some video of several of the demos here.

Dharmesh Shah (URL) said:
I've been to multiple YC Demo Days (and have been following YC startups for a while).

I think this was the best batch yet.

It's easy to be cranky when you're anonymous :).

Thanks for the kind words all.

Dan
Cofounder
TicketStumbler

East Coast VC said:
I am a supporter of Y Combinator, LaunchBox, and TechStars - they all play a key role in addressing the funding and advice gap for first-time entrepreneurs. The ability to help someone get their product and positioning in shape for material angel or seed stage VC funding is invaluable.

SAI, thanks for supporting them!

Another east coast vc said:
I think this batch was better on average too.

My favorites were FrogMetrics (YC's first non-consumer startup?), TicketStumbler (simple concept well executed), and MeetCast (also solving a real problem). Impressive products from such young companies.

Jennifer said:
How is this different from http://www.ticketwood.com I think they are the leaders in this sold out tickets market?

Why hello Ticketwood sock puppet person, it's your pal Dan from TicketStumbler. I noticed that Ticketwood has spammed at least nine other TicketStumbler articles with the exact same comment. Are you guys really this desperate for visitors and attention? How much do spam commenters cost anyways? Love always, your friends at T-Stumbler.

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