Paul Graham Says Y Combinator Companies Have Raised More Than $1 Billion

Billy Gallagher

Billy Gallagher is a contributor for TechCrunch. He is currently the co-student body president at Stanford University, where he is on track to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in economics in 2014. Billy was previously the president and editor in chief of The Stanford Daily. Disclosures: As a poor college student, I own no stock and have no financial interests... → Learn More

Wednesday, July 25th, 2012
y-combinator

Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham tweeted today that YC’s 380 companies (prior to the current batch) have raised $1,048,274,000. Y Combinator, which launched in 2005, takes on two classes of startups per year into their three month program, during which they mentor and connect the founders and invest in the companies.

Even the simplest of mathematicians can look at the two numbers and divide the larger by the smaller and infer that, on average, Y Combinator companies raise more than $2,759,000. But not all YC companies are created equal. Two of Y Combinator’s most notable alums, Dropbox ($257 million) and Airbnb ($120 million), account for almost 36% of the impressive funding total.

When you add in other well-funded companies, like Scribd ($25.8 million), Disqus ($10.5 million), and Posterous ($10.1 million), the total for the remaining 375 Y Combinator companies is still an enormous, but significantly diminished, $624.9 million.

This is the latest eye-popping number from Y Combinator, following Forbes’ report in April that Y Combinator companies were worth a total of $7.78 billion.


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...

→ Learn more