Here Are The Companies That Presented At Y Combinator Demo Day 1
![](data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,<svg height="453" width="680" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" version="1.1"/>)
It’s that time again! Today was Demo Day 1 (of 2) for Y Combinator’s Winter 2015 class — when investors and reporters get their first in-person look at many of the startups that YC has been incubating for the past few months.
Want to see what debuted? We’ll have a list of our favorites soon — but if you want something more exhaustive, we’ve got the whole list below.
Startups are listed in order of presentation, along with our attempts to describe the company in just a few words. We’ve also linked to our existing coverage for each company, where applicable.
Session 1
- HigherMe: Helps employers and employees source and fill hourly jobs
- Nomiku: An at-home sous-vide that clips onto your existing pot, with sous-vide ready meals shipped to your door
- SmartHires: Helps founders make hires from recommendations made by other founders in their shared investor’s portfolio.
- Cleanly: Laundry pickup/delivery in NYC
- Outbound: Helps companies communicate with customers through email or SMS all from one central hub.
- Level: Custom photo frame creation, promising to sell frames at “half the price” of big box stores.
- Priime: Photo editing that recommends filters automatically
- Kuhcoon: Automated Facebook ad campaigns for small businesses
- Treeline: Build a backend without coding
- InsiteVR: Helps you easily view a 3D model in virtual reality
- Pigeonly: Helping inmates stay connected with their families while incarcerated
- Omniref: Rap Genius for code. Annotations that stick to code; like comments, but they automatically follow your code as it’s moved around in your program
- TeamNote: Provides enterprise communications for companies that have people out in the field.
- Spoil: Personal gift concierge. You pick how much you’re willing to spend on a gift; they buy it and send it.
- MetricWire: Software for researchers conducting clinical trials
- GiveMeTap: Buy a water bottle, and they give someone in Africa “5 years of clean drinking water”
- Chariot: Shared commuting; 4 routes currently.
- DemocracyOS: Get information about the current topics being discussed in Congress, and debate/vote within the community on how you’d like your representative to act.
- Paperspace: Your own personal computer living in the cloud. You access it through any browser.
Session 2
![](data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,<svg height="444" width="680" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" version="1.1"/>)
- Bluesmart: Suitcases with built-in 3G, GPS and a rechargeable battery to charge your devices. The company has sold 8,000 units so far, totalling $2.5 million in revenue.
- Platzi: Online learning platform aimed at technology skills. Based in Latin America, the company currently has $120,000 in monthly recurring revenue.
- Booktrope: Collaborative book making, helping writers work with their editors, artists, etc. A built-in team building tool helps authors find people to help them.
- Bright: Bright applies a model similar to Solar City to the developing world, bringing solar power and lower-priced electricity to those who need it. The company claims that every installation it executes generates $10,000 of profit.
- Kickback: Win money betting on videogames. Legal in 45 U.S. States, Canada, and “most of the world.”
- Readme.io: Helps companies that host APIs provide clean, simple documentation for developers. The firm is a bet predicated on sustained growth in the prevalence of APIs.
- SigOpt: Helps to optimize everything from ad campaigns to shaving cream formulas
- Raven Tech Project Flow: combines apps like Yelp and Maps, to help people execute multi-step tasks using their voices. They want to build a “voice-based OS”
- WorkLife: A tool for making meetings more efficient, collaborative and effective
- Shift Messenger: Shift Messenger is a service designed to help hourly workers know their shifts, trade shifts and stay in touch with their coworkers.
- SIRUM: Redistributes surplus medication from pharmacies. Pharmacies donate their extra meds, and SIRUM gets it to those who need it at a lower cost.
- GitLab: Like GitHub, but you can run it on your own servers.
- TaskPipes: Assists SaaS applications talk to one another by ensuring that data passed between various platforms is understandable by both.
- Cinder: A smart grill. You tell it how you like your steak, it cooks it precisely and texts you when it’s done. Sold $150k in pre-sales in three weeks.
- Giveffect: The company builds software for nonprofits, wanting to become the “donate” button for the world.
- Moltin: Lets you easily add e-commerce functionality (think Shopping Carts) to a site with just a few lines of code.
- Detroit Water Project: Help families in Detroit pay their unpaid water bills. Aims to grow to eight more cities by Thanksgiving.
- Luka: Accepts natural language inputs to help users, for now, find the best food in San Francisco using artificial intelligence. You can also book reservations from inside the application.
- SmartSpot: Smart mirrors for gyms that analyze your form as you lift. 3D cameras track your body and provide guidance.
- Pachyderm: Data analytics for Docker, helping companies fully utilize what containerization has brought to the technology space.
- Bagaveev Corporation: Building rockets specifically to launch nanosatellites. 1/100th the size of a standard ground-to-orbit rocket. Promises to launch 50 rockets per year.
Session 3
![](data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,<svg height="452" width="680" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" version="1.1"/>)
- Pakible: Helps companies design and order their physical packaging online. Claims that it will ship 1 million units this month.
- Popular Pays: “Decentralizes advertising” by helping brands coordinate with social influencers (Instagram, Vine, Pinterest, etc.) in advance. Influencers offer to tweet about something at a specific time/date and offer their ideas. Brands pick and choose which they like best.
- Yhat: A computing solution for data scientists. The company sits at the intersection of increasing market awareness of data science itself and cloud computing.
- SlideMail: A smart email assistant. It skims your email for important information (meetings, flights) to set up reminders, and offers suggestions as to which emails it thinks you probably just want to archive and get out of the way.
- Pomello: Uses algorithms to better determine when a potential hire will fit in at the hiring firm. The result of which is lower employee churn and, presumably, a happier workforce.
- Dealyze: White-label customer loyalty programs. Think something like FiveStar, but customized and themed to your business.
- Groupahead: Gives groups of any size their own membership-based mobile application. The company charges on a subscription basis for its service. Groupahead cited frats and yacht clubs as potential user scenarios.
- Vanhawks: An “operating system” for bikes. Handles things like health metrics and theft alerts. It built a bike as a proof of concept, sold $1.3 million worth. Will focus on licensing with bike manufacturers moving forward.
- Magic: The crazy-viral project from a few weeks back is one phone number — text it a request for anything (legal), and it’ll respond with a cost for them to fulfill it.
- Trackin: Food delivery software. Provides an online ordering system, an analytics dashboard for managers, and a mobile app for employees.
- PushMarket: helps drive sales by automating email marketing to send “personalized” email at the “right time.” There seems to be a war between startups that want to either kill email or better leverage it.
- Perceptive Labs: Has created physical technology that can be deployed to drones, helping them self-navigate. The company also intends to partner with drone OEMs to integrate its technology into new units before they’re shipped.
A few companies presenting at the end of the day were noted as “off the record,” primarily because they aren’t prepared for public exposure yet. As detailing these companies prior to launch would hurt them, we’ve honored this request.
Tomorrow brings another huge round of presentations, so be sure to check back for that batch.
![](data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,<svg height="105" width="187" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" version="1.1"/>)
![](data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,<svg height="134" width="187" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" version="1.1"/>)
![](data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,<svg height="93" width="187" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" version="1.1"/>)
![](data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,<svg height="125" width="187" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" version="1.1"/>)
![](data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,<svg height="120" width="187" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" version="1.1"/>)
