16 ms·
All 50 startups from Y Combinator’s Summer 2017 Demo Day 1
- lpolovets 9y agoI'm surprised this includes non-public stats like MRR metrics. Is that normal for a TechCrunch demo day summary?
- teej 9y agoI haven't been to a demo day in a while but it's typically been split into an "on the record" group and an "off the record" group. Startups like to share their MRR number because it can help grab the attention of potential investors.
- lpolovets 9y agoYup. But afaik most founders don't want this info to be public. (I'm an investor and was at demo day. I seem to recall that previous TC coverage described what each company did without exposing metrics, but I could be wrong.)
- callmevlad 9y agoAs far back as 4 years ago, it was standard practice to have revenue/growth/traction info published in TC - e.g. https://techcrunch.com/2013/08/20/y-combinator-demo-day-summer-2013/ https://techcrunch.com/2013/08/20/y-combinator-demo-day-summ...
- Old_Thrashbarg 9y agoRight, I was at Demo Day today. They warned us repeatedly, that unless we opted in to the "off the record" group, anything we said was fair game to become public.
- esaym 9y agoWish we had a list of what they are all using on the front and back ends.
- trcollinson 9y agoAlthough I think that might be interesting, would it actually be valuable? Serious question honestly, what would that do for us? How would we use that data?
- dagw 9y agoI guess it depends very much on the company. If the company is doing something cutting edge in the web app space then it might be interesting. If, on the other hand, they're a robotics or biotech company then who cares if their home page is just a hosted WordPress site.
- baxtr 9y agoTo discuss it? I guess?
- yitchelle 9y agoIt would certainly increase the awareness of it.
- johnvonneumann 9y agoProbably highlight some interesting bits and pieces in relation to the whole "use boring tech" vs "use bleeding edge tech" argument that so many people seem to make.
- niark 9y agohttps://stackshare.io/stacks https://stackshare.io/stacks gathers data about which frameworks are used by tech companies - though probably none of the startups from the article are listed here yet.
- lesiva 9y agoDo the video recordings of these demos get posted online?
- utdiscant 9y agoVideos of the presentations are only available to the investors invited to demo day.
- seehafer 9y agoYeah, you either need to be an investor or make friends with one of the founders and ask really nice
- Old_Thrashbarg 9y agoI'm one of the founders from today. We don't have access to other startup's videos AFAIK, only our own. I think only investors get to see them all.
- austenallred 9y agoYes you do. Just need to go to the right URL and sign in with your HN account.
- Old_Thrashbarg 9y agoYou're right, was at the wrong URL.
- seehafer 9y agoRight, what I meant was, if someone wanted to see your video, they'd either need to ask you or be an investor invited by YC.
- Lordarminius 9y agoYour comment gives me an idea: perhaps YC should make all the video pitches public when their companies get funded. It would be both entertaining an educative
- kornish 9y agoPersonal favorite snippet from the article: > With this pedigree, PullRequest has managed to draw interest from 450 teams. Though only a portion of these are actually using the service, PullRequest touts a $136 million annualized revenue run rate. From Crunchbase: founded May, 2017. As a disclaimer, I'm no accountant, but that just seems downright deliberately misleading. Their standard plan is $49/mo.
- sethbannon 9y agoProbably a typo or mistake by the reporters.
- rpedela 9y agoMaybe all of their current customers are on the enterprise plan?
- brandonb 9y agoI'd guess it's a 136 thousand run rate, and there's just a typo in the article. $136 million would really be something.
- jimminy 9y agoFrom their standard billing option section. > * Billing is dependent on amount of meaningful change per month. $9 per user per month for static analysis. I agree it still sounds far fetched that their at the $136 million ARR, but it's not infeasible they're somewhere near the the low-to-mid 8-figures, with their enterprise solutions as well. If it was $9/user, for all those companies that figure would require the average team size to be 2,800 people. Which is extremely unlikely.
- coolswan 9y agoThat's a pretty bad typo. $136K.
- lyal 9y agoFounder of PullRequest here: To be clear: $136,000, not $136mm. Typo on article.
- t0mbstone 9y agoI find it interesting that "Honeydue" is in the list, when there are multiple free apps already in existence such as Buxfer and Splitwise that have already been available for years. Both Buxfer and Splitwise serve the exact same functions as Honeydue (splitting bills/expenses with room mates and/or partners), and both of them are free to use. Sadly, neither app has found a way to be all that profitable after all these years. Maybe Honeydue will do something to solve the marketing problem that apparently both Buxfer and Splitwise have?
- adjkant 9y agoSplitwise user who absolutely loves it here. I wouldn't think to do budgeting on it at all. Its purpose is splitting expenses, nothing more. It does it great and the single function is a part of why I use it. Hooking up with Venmo, big plus. People here are talking modularity, and those two services are great examples. Honeydue looks to be budgeting and larger finance management targeted at couples. I don't know Buxfer well, but it looks like the couples targeting is the variation it has over it. As someone in a long term relationship who expects to be sharing finances relatively soon, Honeydue looks like a very interesting option. Currently we are separate but discuss and keep tabs on spending together, and have one giant splitwise going. The majority of that budgeting is done on Excel / Sheets - good for customizability, but a bit of a pain. Once we merge accounts and the like, that Splitwise goes away and Honeydue may just come in now that I know about it. It if was just me, I would have no need for Buxfer.
- davedx 9y agoYeah, long term relationship here, we split our expenses using Google Sheets. I have to say I don't feel any pain doing it this way, and it's super simple - just sum two columns and show the outstanding difference. I certainly appreciate how often applications can grow out of spreadsheets, but I don't see why I need an application to do this kind of thing...
- adjkant 9y agoSome questions that add complications, particularly when finances merge: What are the individual budgets by activity for each person and how is the budget reflecting reality? What about any shared bank accounts? Do you separate investments by person? How do you handle diversification? Those questions are not all current problems or by any means all possible problems, but hopefully you can see how a spreadsheet could grow too big for its bridges there. If Honeydue were able to provide an easy method that addresses many of those questions, it would be impressive. TBD of course, and color me a bit doubtful. I've thought of making a personalized app for myself given the level of detail I'd probably require for me to use it.
- hn_throwaway_99 9y agoOverall, I think this is a really impressive list. It seems like a varied mix, and given criticism from a couple years back that Silicon Valley isn't focusing on "hard" stuff, was cool to see lots of awesome tech (auto-piloting planes! robot vegetable pickers!)
- icebraining 9y agoTotemic is interesting to me, since one of my close relatives spent five hours on the floor of their house after falling, as she could never remember to carry her cellphone (hard habit to acquire at 90 years old...). And of course, she could have lost consciousness, which would render the cellphone useless. That said, I wonder how can they have a single device for the whole house, and how it works for harder floors, like ceramic tile, which doesn't make much of a sound. Seems to me that something so sensitive would be triggered by way too many false positives.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- austenallred 9y agoIt doesn't listen for sound, it uses wireless signals and sensor fusion to monitor movements.
- giarc 9y ago>Totemic Labs is building a device that resembles an Amazon Echo that uses sound to identify and respond to falls automatically.
- austenallred 9y agoI'm in the current batch. That's wrong.
- nealk 9y agoCofounder of Totemic here! Austen is right! We use a variety of wireless sensors to monitor people's movements. We can do much more than detection of falls at a singular moment in time this way and we actually will be using a singular device for small apartments and multiple for larger houses (think like Eero).
- giarc 9y agoIt would be interesting to see their technology. As I understand, many falls aren't what we think of in the general sense of "fall". Many are slow fall to the ground, for example struggle to get out of a chair and go down on one knee, then to the floor.
- bluker 9y agoRelationship Hero is hilarious to me. We're going to solve the unpredictability of human relationships with a "light-weight" solution. Oh and we assume no responsibility for the advice given or the actions you take. Luckily no one reads the ToS and it's a huge market - everyone has relationship problems. So they'll make millions because most of the population isn't rational enough to understand that at a base-level that none of us know shit about all the intricacies of human relationships. Life coaches and psychiatrists included. Kudos to them on their traction. I'm talking shit but preying on people's insecurities in relationships is an endless market. Can't wait to see their FB ads pop-up right after a Tai Lopez infomercial. Directly quoted from their TOS: The Platform enables you to communicate with a Dating Expert for the purpose of getting dating advice, information or any other input, benefit or service (not considered "Counselor Services"). The Dating experts are neither our employees nor agents nor representatives. Furthermore, we assume no responsibility for any act, omission or doing of any dating expert. We make no representation or warranty whatsoever as to the willingness or ability of a Dating Expert to give advice. We make no representation or warranty whatsoever as to whether you will find the Dating Expert’s advice relevant, useful, correct, relevant, satisfactory or suitable to your needs. We do not control the quality of the dating advice and we do not determine whether any Dating Expert is qualified to provide any specific service as well as whether a dating expert is categorized correctly or matched correctly to you. While we may try to do so from time to time, in our sole discretion, you acknowledge that we do not represent to verify, and do not guarantee the verification of, the skills, degrees, qualifications, licensure, certification, credentials, competence or background of any Dating Expert.
- sysdyne 9y ago>the endless sea of video chat experts websites wasn't enough This is what annoys me about the current "innovation" worshiping cult. Everybody just takes a already existent idea and changes just a simple variable. "Uber/Airbnb of X" style of thinking should just be put to rest forever. This is obviously happening because our current way of thinking is a mistake in itself. Everything should be modular and Jef Raskin was a proponent of this idea unfortunately nobody took him seriously enough. I should be able to use a search application that lists to me every available expert, click the link, and then have a modular app skype/whatsapp/telegram blend in my workspace or open and be able to chat with that said expert. Speaking of search engines every website should index they're own content and those indexes be categorized in blocks and linked to a central repository that then can be coupled with searching algorithms and users should be able to connect to that central repository and query it like a public library of the internet. Goodbye Google!! Another thing if find annoying is paywalls. What if I go to Netflix and I just want to watch a just a specific movie or episodes without having to pay a membership fee. Let's say that Netflix has "Pirates of the Caribbean" and just want to click that video and stream it for 0.9 cents with not login in features and my ISP provider to add that payment to my utility bill. No Paypal/ApplePay/Google Wallet! Is it that hard to innovate in those way?
- pfarnsworth 9y agoI'm surprised about the stem cell company. Stem cell storage companies are notorious scams. I remember doing research into these when my first child was born. There's only a small subset of diseases it can actually help, and until you can actually grow organs, it's generally useless, for a lot of money. Also you can generate stem cells from adult blood cells or bone marrow anyway. What the YC company appears to offer doesn't seem much more than a Silicon Valley Blood Boy, the unproven promise of youth from young blood.
- bsaul 9y agoDon't understand the parent downvote, i was also very intrigued by the startup's claims. If someone with good expertise on the field could bring arguments that would be great.
- redlollipop 9y agoYC is not very good at evaluating medical companies. Its track record is not great.
- icebraining 9y agoThey say Pyka already built a plane, so why do they only show renderings? Seems weird to waste that credibility advantage.
- dvdhsu 9y agohttps://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/pyka.jpg?w=1360&h=800 https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/pyka.jp... Second image on Techcrunch article.
- icebraining 9y agoThanks! I clicked to their site, didn't occur to me to check the TC article.
- elmar 9y agoa video of the plane taking off and flying would be a nice addon.
- hyperpallium 9y agoIt's curious there's no video, since they're already crop-dusting. Even searching on the internet didn't turn up anything. BTW "piker" is slang for giving up, not the best startup connotation! (though mightn't be widespread)
- lancewiggs 9y agoParse that again - I'm not sure that they are actually cropdusting in New Zealand. I have not heard of anything here in NZ (where we don't call it cropdusting anyway), but who knows.
- hyperpallium 9y ago> Pyka has developed a placeholder business doing crop dusting in New Zealand. That helps it earn $600 per hour while logging the hours necessary to prepare for the human transportation market. It depends on what "developed" means, but the next sentence seems to say they are currently earning $600 ph from it. I suppose it could be parsed to mean that a hypothetical "business" earns that.
- geewee 9y agoSunu looks really cool - I did a project a while ago where we embedded distance sensors and vibrators in shoes to help the visually impaired navigate objects that were close to the ground (e.g. curbs, stairs) - glad to see someone else doing work in that space.
- eps 9y agoGopher is a poorly chosen name for a platform - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol) Dropleaf (Netflix for indie games) - at $10/mo for a 50-game bundle I can't see how this can attract any of the quality games and devs.
- coolswan 9y agoI thought the same thing - FTP. I suppose we're all aging ourselves if we immediately think of that.
- CJefferson 9y agoGames sales, like movie sales, are mostly made in the first month. I can imagine like Netflix, lots of people with good 18 month old games might be happy to put them on this service. Further, I might seriously consider using it if they ban in-app purchases (or at least psy-to-win in app purchases), because they are increasingly hard to avoid.
- 9y ago
- probably_wrong 9y agoD-ID seems to me quite interesting, if only because their interests are directly opposed to those of several governments. It's a shame they don't seem to offer a 1-click "buy now" alternative, but I imagine the process might be too time-intensive for that.
- michaelmwangi 9y agoI found airthium [http://www.airthium.com/ http://www.airthium.com/] to be quite interesting I wonder how the efficiency compares with the liquid metal battery at Ambri http://www.ambri.com http://www.ambri.com
- davedx 9y agoYeah, this space is very exciting at the moment. Would be great to see a summary of all the current incumbents and new companies and what they're working on.
- statictype 9y agoVerge Sense looks interesting. Is it just a platform for gathering data from sensors and providing insights for facilities? Or do you use their applications to actually do facility management (ie, seat booking, etc...)
- coolswan 9y agoSounds like they do the latter too - action items to help utilize space better.
- contingencies 9y agoFeather seems very solid. If you guys want a China partner let me know. It's Ikea's fastest growing market.
- boyce 9y agoDo you think? There are already plenty of companies in the UK at least that rent furniture and home electrical goods to people who can't afford it Are they bringing anything new to the party?
- bpicolo 9y agoI think they're going for the convenience factor of full delivery/setup, which I think is more or less a distinguishing factor.
- contingencies 9y agoWe've seen the replacement of a globally fragmented sector with a well funded and executed global technology-heavy upstart before. What did airbnb bring that was new to the party? UX and a marketing budget.
- AndrewKemendo 9y agoThere are already plenty of companies in the UK at least that rent furniture and home electrical goods to people who can't afford it We have those in the states too. The interesting thing is that their business model isn't renting furniture and appliances, their business model is providing credit. They are more like banks than they are rental stores.
- Lordarminius 9y agoThey may or may not make money, but how is this in any way qualify as a tech startup ? Aren't they a leasing company ?
- contingencies 9y agoIsn't amazon a logistics company?
- tanilama 9y agoZendar and Darmiyan look interesting. Good to see startups tackle real problems.
- elmar 9y agoSkyways.com VTOL vehicles looks interesting but not photos.
- 0bsidian 9y agoUbiq looks interesting, but I thought this space was already quite crowded. I wonder if they're going for SMBs / companies that are deploying video conferencing solutions for the first time.
- rudimental 9y agoFlock seems like it could help solve some crimes, but at a huge cost - privacy. You can't opt out, unless you live nearby and register with the company. "Residents of monitored neighbourhoods can opt-out of being tracked - but visitors, or people passing through, cannot." http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41008141 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41008141 Do people like law enforcement collecting license plates and keeping them in databases indefinitely? How about random people? (Flock says it deletes data after 30 days, users have it beyond 30 days). What if their users had a database with pictures of faces, not just license plates? Facial recognition seems to be in their roadmap. For context, it's presumably legal in California to collect licenses plates, and pictures of people's faces, if they're in public spaces. A quote from the founder on privacy: "We don’t want into get into the business of making decisions about privacy and how this technology is used beyond the original use case." Aren't there better ways to solve the problem(s) this product solves?
- coolswan 9y agoIsn't driving a public activity? Supposedly they're selling to HOAs; not sure how public/private those streets are. But I imagine you have a huge degree of control over that.
- garrettlangley 9y agoGenerally speaking, only gated communities are on private streets. Otherwise, every street is public and managed by the local city/county.
- imaginenore 9y agoYou can't opt out while being in public. That's unreasonable.
- matt4077 9y ago"That's unreasonable" isn't an argument. What's reasonable is decided by society. New technologies may change what's possible, and make something that was ok before the means to achieve something entirely new. If, for example, these gadgets, or existing security cameras started to pool their data, run (accurate) face-detection on it, and start publicising everyones' location history online, I'm pretty sure most people would object to that–even those that previously had no problem with their image being recorded by the CCTV at the gas station, or the tourist taking a photo that included them.
- jelliclesfarm 9y agoModular Science - Outdoor farm robot. They pivoted from lab automation to outdoor farm bots? How? I applied to YC twice(unsuccefully) with the same idea. And I am a farmer. Just not a PhD from MIT. I would love to know they came up with that number. Really. Would love love love to know how..
- imaginenore 9y agoMaybe they had more than just an idea?
- jelliclesfarm 9y agoOf course. Most likely. What else can it be.. Colour me bitter..but my biggest weakness is that I am not 'technical' enough...but why is someone who has never tilled a field or known the rhythms of growing food in the natural world and knows the diff between dirt and soil be better qualified to make what we need? And keep us suckling on the giant teat(or whatever) of tech? Like Monsanto does..like John Deere and dmca..we are ok trying to adapt nature to tech. Would tech people dare invent something medical without input or participation of doctors and surgeons? Look at the water..the obesity rates..the degraded soils..the poisons in the environment..that's the hubris of science and tech and the power of $. Because peasants have no value, right? Right now..I would rather be a witch riding a broomstick than a farmer or a fan of science/tech.
- imaginenore 9y agoFind technical cofounders. It's not too late. YC is just one VC company. And don't be so bitter, it's not VC's fault that you lack technical skills.
- jelliclesfarm 9y agoTo build a farm bot you need..electrical engg, AI guy, mechanical engg, roboticists. I am just disappointed that a biotech company that was doing lab automation(because that's what modular science was doing) could 'pivot' into farm robots. It actually makes me sick in the stomach because I think I see how SV works.
- nullandvoid 9y agoAnyone got more information on gamelynx? The information given there is extremely vague and the site doesn't offer any clarification either
- dyarosla 9y agoWaterlooo based startup. Maybe you can find an older pitch online searching for Velocity fund. I think it's a major from their first direction though :/
- robinjfisher 9y agoAs I'm in the industry, my thoughts on some of the recruitment-related companies: 10 BY 10 - I don't get it. Their website says they are a contingency search firm with a value prop of having resumes filtered by people with domain knowledge before submission to clients. Also that they deliberately hit a low acceptance rate on resumes because they try to submit a diverse field of candidates. If the goal is to get the hiring manager the right person, then the best resumes should be submitted without imposing some arbitrary diversity requirement. 70 Million Jobs - love the concept. Big believer that proper recruitment practices can help rehabilitation of offenders. ShiftDoc - marketplace concept in the healthcare space. Not sure of regulatory environment in the US but in the UK, these models will suffer due to regulatory issues over the status of the workers. Gustav - I like this model. Offers a platform for smaller agencies to compete with the larger players. Will be interesting to see how sustainable it is given the commoditisation in certain sectors as the 3% take seems very high given pressure on margins in staffing in the US.
- lkbm 9y ago10 BY 10, going purely by your description, makes it sound to me along the lines of Malcolm Gladwell's pasta sauce realization[0]--if you want to find the perfect sauce for person X, you need to offer chunky, spicy, and "plain". None is inherently the best, so you offer three that are best in distinct ways. [0] https://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce https://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauc...
- robinjfisher 9y agoI'm not familiar with the video and will check it out when I'm at home. If I was to say more on 10 BY 10 it's that I don't see the differentiator. Plenty of search firms are staffed by people with domain knowledge and the pre-screening of resumes by an expert or qualifying candidate interest prior to resume submission are not significant enough to differentiate in that space. If I was to be cynical, I'd say that going through YC gives them access to a lot of prospective clients because I fail to see why any particular significant investment would be needed to start a search firm. I see the TC article talks about a marketplace so perhaps there is a development down the line of what their solution looks like.
- indescions_2017 9y agoOn GameLynx: Gamedev studio targeting mobile device platforms with an emphasis on hardcore, competitive league style play. Backed by "one of the largest game companies in the world." Honor of Kings, Clash Royale, Vainglory, Hearthstone and Supercell's upcoming Brawl Stars create a crowded marketplace. Interested to hear what will differentiate GameLynx's game? How is it planning to innovate and compete? What is the strategy for capturing market share in China, India and the rest of Asia? What exactly is the "next gen" in mobile eSports? Revenues that these games generate is astronomical. And at some of the highest margins possible. Supercell hit the $2B per year mark recently. And Tencent's profit last quarter was close to $3B. Best of luck to the team and can't wait to play!
- bpicolo 9y agoI'm somewhat surprised there's no demo/preview/marketing for any game yet. Seems like it would be hard to approach YC with "we want to make a game that makes tons of money", because there are a crazy amount of variables involved in that. Perhaps they applied with more info, but it's not public yet?
- Kpourdeilami 9y agoThey don't have any games on their website currently but as far as I remember, they published their first game in January this year and generated a good amount of revenue
- bpicolo 9y agoTheir original goal of online microtransaction boardgames is a far cry from very popular eSport. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Oed9nM7MFA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Oed9nM7MFA
- dyarosla 9y agoThis is their more recent pitch, but still no eSports: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6GWa2NyEKw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6GWa2NyEKw I'm guessing this is a pivot they've made recently- surprised they pitched it when so early: doesn't look like they are even at proof of concept yet with this new idea.
- demonshalo 9y agoAside from a selected few, I am not very impressed with said "offering" :/ It feels as if it is all a bunch of recycled stuff. But I guess that's just the cynic in me talking!
- crummy 9y agoThe second photo in the article, under Zendar, is actually a screenshot from a video game called Scanner Sombre. I guess this is just a mistake?
- Impossible 9y agoI don't think this is a mistake, I think they needed a "visual," Googled LIDAR and thought Sombre Scanner was the coolest looking image... I wonder if Introversion knows about this usage? I guess for an indie game any kind of exposure is good even if its completely misappropriated... It's also sloppy on Techcrunch's part because it's not even a real LIDAR capture, it's a video game emulating LIDAR.
- jnordt 9y agoOn the startups relating to ground based mobility / autonomous vehicles: Zendar Interesting concept! I recently talked to an Engineer from Hella and it seems most of the big automotive suppliers seem to develop some kind of low cost radar units that can then be combined to generate rough point clouds. Definitely willing to test the tech, if you have some spare units @ Zendar ;-) MayMobility If I get the concept right isn't the business modell very similiar to Door2Door, CleverShuttle (even though they are not yet using shuttles) or a number of London competitors ? I personally agree with the underlying assumption from many of the players in that market that one of the easiest entries for autonomous vehicles designed for urban environments with a max speed of 30 - 40 km/h that only navigate in pre mapped and pre defined areas.
- goberoi 9y agoDid I miss it, or are there no virtual reality startups on this list? I'm a wee bit surprised: VR is nascent and there aren't enough devices out there to build sustainable businesses shipping content, but I would have expected at least 1 or 2.
- Lordarminius 9y agoHelium seems like a decent idea and I'm proud to see a Nigerian startup represented. However, to my mind and from my experience, the major issue in the medical records space is how the data obtained from caregiver/patient interaction gets captured in the first instance. Health workers have not embraced typing in any form (and they most likely will not)and traditional way of recording by hand does not digitize readily . How are you solving this problem ?
- Gargoyle 9y agoTechCrunch's top 7 picks of this group of 50: Pyka, PullRequest, Zendar, Gopher, Modular Science, Escher Reality, Forever Labs. With the exception of Gopher, I think that's a solid list. I just can't get excited about another company putting apps on top of email, though. Maybe it's just me. All the others seem to have at least a potential path to strong growth that's pretty obvious.
- avs733 9y agoI'm amused that peergrade's home link to the academic research behind the product 404's
- mieraisan 9y agobookmarked
- yladiz 9y agoHow did Guggy get into YC? It's going to become another Yik Yak, where it has a lot of users and growth but no strategy for monetization (users aren't gonna accept ads in their text messages, for example).