• 43 Promising Startups Present At Y Combinator's Biggest Demo Day Yet

    Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011

    Jason Kincaid currently works as a writer at TechCrunch. He grew up in Danville, California and later relocated to UCLA in Los Angeles, California, where he studied biology with a minor in ‘Society and Genetics’. You can reach him at jkincaidtc@gmail.com (he has other addresses too, so don’t worry if you have a different one). → Learn More

    Twice a year, Y Combinator holds special events called Demo Day, when its most recent batch of startups present to a packed room full of top investors. It’s the grand finale of the program, where entrepreneurs have a few minutes to show off what they’ve built in the hopes of raising a seed round to help their companies stay afloat for at least a few more months (and hopefully much longer).

    Of course, Demo Day is a bit different from what it was a year or two ago. The spectre of a $0 bank account is further off, as Y Combinator companies are now being offered $150,000 in convertible debt by Start Fund, the fund created by Yuri Milner and Ron Conway’s SV Angel. And there are now more companies than ever — 43 companies presented during Demo Day this afternoon, which means they’re each given a bit less time.

    But the spirit is still the same. It’s a whirlwind introduction to some of the most promising tech startups around, and investors are so eager to attend that Y Combinator has had to start offering two Demo Days per session. The investors at today’s session (which is generally more desirable than day two) had something special in common: YC cofounder Paul Graham announced that all investors in attendance had previously invested in a Y Combinator company.

    We’ve already covered many of the companies that presented today (and most of the others were off the record). Here’s a handy list of links to our past coverage.


    Company: Y Combinator
    Website: ycombinator.com
    Launch Date: April 1, 2005
    Funding: $10.3M

    Y Combinator is a venture fund which focuses on seed investments to startup companies. It offers financing as well as business consulting along with other opportunities to 2-4 person companies looking to take an idea to a product. Y Combinator looks for companies with “good” ideas over companies with experience and a business model. The company made its first investments in Summer 2005. Y Combinator selects companies to finance and consult with twice a year. They are located in...

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