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Are there any stats for YC-funded startups that have grown to sustained profitability, vs continuing to exist through additional rounds of funding?

JonFish85 11y ago
According to Wikipedia, their best-known funded companies are: Dropbox, Airbnb, Coinbase, Stripe, Reddit, Zenefits, Instacart and Weebly. Dropbox - Not public, probably not profitable Airbnb - Not public, might be profitable, lots of legal questions. Coinbase - Not public, raised $100m+, no idea if it's profitable Stripe - Not public, raised almost $200m, almost certainly not profitable Reddit - Acquired by Conde Nast (private), might be profitable. Zenefits - Not public, probably not profitable, raised ~$500m Instacart - Not public, not profitable, raised ~$300m Weebly - Not public, might be profitable So I'd say their track record isn't great on that front. I don't know of any meaningful ($1bn+) IPOs of YC companies (not to say that they don't exist). The fact that I had no idea what Weebly was until a moment ago probably means it's not one of their success stories. I suspect DropBox will IPO at some point, but after Box's IPO, they have an uphill battle to prove that they won't be the same dud. Coinbase I had forgotten existed, so I'm really curious what their deal is (especially considering their valuation is so high, I wonder if they can support it anymore).
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  Thanks for providing this. I'd like to turn this into a wiki or GH repo, aggregating all of the data.
- Cookingboy 11y ago
  Calling Dropbox having an uphill battle to prove their valuation is quite an understatement. Box is trading at about 6x their forward revenue in valuation, versus cloud industry's 10-12x average, and during the last Dropbox round it was rumored it was valued at 40X its forward revenue. Meanwhile Box is winning major partnerships and customers left and right and the market still hates it, I really wonder how Dropbox is gonna tell their story considering their vast consumer user base is a liability instead of asset when it comes to profitability.

JonFish85 11y ago

According to Wikipedia, their best-known funded companies are: Dropbox, Airbnb, Coinbase, Stripe, Reddit, Zenefits, Instacart and Weebly. Dropbox - Not public, probably not profitable Airbnb - Not public, might be profitable, lots of legal questions. Coinbase - Not public, raised $100m+, no idea if it's profitable Stripe - Not public, raised almost $200m, almost certainly not profitable Reddit - Acquired by Conde Nast (private), might be profitable. Zenefits - Not public, probably not profitable, raised ~$500m Instacart - Not public, not profitable, raised ~$300m Weebly - Not public, might be profitable So I'd say their track record isn't great on that front. I don't know of any meaningful ($1bn+) IPOs of YC companies (not to say that they don't exist). The fact that I had no idea what Weebly was until a moment ago probably means it's not one of their success stories. I suspect DropBox will IPO at some point, but after Box's IPO, they have an uphill battle to prove that they won't be the same dud. Coinbase I had forgotten existed, so I'm really curious what their deal is (especially considering their valuation is so high, I wonder if they can support it anymore).

toomuchtodo 11y ago
Thanks for providing this. I'd like to turn this into a wiki or GH repo, aggregating all of the data.
Cookingboy 11y ago
Calling Dropbox having an uphill battle to prove their valuation is quite an understatement. Box is trading at about 6x their forward revenue in valuation, versus cloud industry's 10-12x average, and during the last Dropbox round it was rumored it was valued at 40X its forward revenue. Meanwhile Box is winning major partnerships and customers left and right and the market still hates it, I really wonder how Dropbox is gonna tell their story considering their vast consumer user base is a liability instead of asset when it comes to profitability.