7 ms·

There are now 141 bio and healthcare companies funded by YC

59 points by sethbannon 8y ago

danielecook 8y ago
Is there a list of these somewhere?
- elektor 8y ago
  The closest thing I could find was this list: https://yclist.com/ https://yclist.com/ A ctrl+F of "bio" gave me a few results.
  - danielecook 8y ago
    Nice! Very interesting to see the failures also...
bra-ket 8y ago
it would be interesting to see what these 141 companies be able to accomplish if combined
kayhi 8y ago
"I define “bio” at YC as anything enabled by biology and anything in healthcare." Is that a common definition? I haven't consider healthcare companies as bio. I'd be interested in the list of the 141, unsure if I'm the only one.
- the_watcher 8y ago
  I'd be interested in the 141 as well, but since my interpretation of the post is to highlight that bio and hard tech companies are actively funded by YC (and have been for years), I think the permissive definition is probably appropriate.
- kayhi 8y ago
  Okay, thought I would try to answer my own question. We write software[1] that helps research labs save money and here are companies that I'd consider bio: Sorry if missing some: Glowing Plant, S14 Ginko Bioworks, S14 Notable Labs, W15 Transcriptic, W15 Industrial Microbes, W15 Lygos, W16 C16 Biosciences, S18 CB Therapeutics, S18 Cytera CellWorks, S18 Hepatx, S18 Borderline: HistoWiz, W16 Forever Labs, S17 Ambercycle, F2 [1] Lab Spend - https://labspend.com https://labspend.com
rheffern 8y ago
Though the line of best fit seems to fit well to an exponential for now, it is likely a sigmoid in the end [0]. The real trick is figuring out when you've reached the 50% mark, as any physiologist will tell you! ;) Also, I might as well mention that I'm a recent bio-eng grad that posts in the 'Who's hiring?' threads still. Details in my profile page. And, sorry to be so blatantly self promoting. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmoid_function https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmoid_function
duxup 8y ago
"I define “bio” at YC as anything enabled by biology and anything in healthcare. In healthcare, this includes medical devices, tools, therapeutics, diagnostics, and healthcare IT" Healthcare IT... not what I would think of as Bio. As noted in the quote if it is "anything in healthcare" that just seems like, healthcare.
- jf- 8y ago
  You can have non-healthcare applications of biology (e.g. agriculture, materials) and non-bio applications in healthcare (e.g. patient management systems). It’s not a great definition.
- firstplacelast 8y ago
  Diagnostics and therapeutics are largely (completely?) bio-based. It generally requires a great deal of cellular and/or genomic research. Medical devices also involve some heavy biology related research. However, healthcare IT generally has nothing to do with biology.
- the_watcher 8y ago
  I had this thought at first too, but there's a more granular breakdown: 74% healthcare, of which 34% are IT, 28% are diagnostics, 24% are therapeutics, 14% are devices. Using that info, taking what I consider the most reasonable strict approach (exclude IT, diagnostics, and devices), you'd exclude ~64% of the defined companies. Without a complete listing of the companies considered, it's hard to gauge how strict you'd need to be in order to be precise, but since the point of this post is to highlight that bio and hard tech companies are being actively funded by YC and have been for a while now, I think the author's assumptions were pretty reasonable.
- dang 8y ago
  Ok, we've added "and healthcare" to the title above.
- breck 8y ago
  I don't have any experience in Healthcare IT but I'm curious why you say you wouldn't think of that as bio? I work at a bioinformatics lab and have been surprised by the big disconnect between the mountains of real-time clinical data produced by healthcare each day, versus the relative trickle of data we get in our lab (after IRB, et cetera). Seems like there is a lot of room for innovation in Healthcare IT that could connect to bio-research and make the whole research system more like modern software updates versus the box software(research papers) of the 80's.
erohead 8y ago
If you're interested, YC maintains a list of all the public (ie launched) companies. You can sort by category as well: http://www.ycombinator.com/companies http://www.ycombinator.com/companies
jedberg 8y ago
And yet no cure for cancer! I kid, but actually there are a few YC companies literally working on cures for cancer, and every time I see one I think, "That's the kid of swing for the fences YC is known for, good luck to them!".
kateybatey8 8y ago
woohoo!
doublerebel 8y ago
Really excited to hear this now!! I've been watching the job postings appear for HumanDx and I'm looking forward to what the YC companies can achieve together. I think in healthcare it's particularly important to understand the "user(s)." YC companies have a great opportunity to use smart startup techniques to make healthcare more accessible and more successful.
jacquesm 8y ago
If you don't have a lab you are not into bio. That said there are a lot of companies that are trying real hard to replace their labs with software.
ArtWomb 8y ago
And congrats to Ginko on recent $120M deal with Cronos Group. Engineering yeast strains that can produce full-spectrum of cannabinoids via fermentation at factory scale. Really exciting! https://thecronosgroup.com/investor-relations/ https://thecronosgroup.com/investor-relations/
- jamestimmins 8y ago
  Mind explaining what this means and why it's exciting?
  - ArtWomb 8y ago
    Maybe some Ginko peeps can chime in ;) But I'm very impressed with the scale. $100M is ballpark scale of all cannabis US research funding per annum. And most trials investigate CBD, THC. There are hundreds of other cannabinoid compounds worth investigating. Providing high quality samples to researchers will result in discoveries. A single cannabis breakthrough treatment changes the entire game. Plus, expertise for Ginko with synthesizing cannabinoids conceivably translates to opiods and myriad other medicinal plants compounds.
abdullahkhalids 8y ago
That's nice. But can someone list out the notable ones which have solved important problems.

59 points by sethbannon 8y ago

danielecook 8y ago

Is there a list of these somewhere?

elektor 8y ago
The closest thing I could find was this list: https://yclist.com/ https://yclist.com/ A ctrl+F of "bio" gave me a few results.
- danielecook 8y ago
  Nice! Very interesting to see the failures also...

bra-ket 8y ago

it would be interesting to see what these 141 companies be able to accomplish if combined

kayhi 8y ago

"I define “bio” at YC as anything enabled by biology and anything in healthcare." Is that a common definition? I haven't consider healthcare companies as bio. I'd be interested in the list of the 141, unsure if I'm the only one.

the_watcher 8y ago
I'd be interested in the 141 as well, but since my interpretation of the post is to highlight that bio and hard tech companies are actively funded by YC (and have been for years), I think the permissive definition is probably appropriate.
kayhi 8y ago
Okay, thought I would try to answer my own question. We write software[1] that helps research labs save money and here are companies that I'd consider bio: Sorry if missing some: Glowing Plant, S14 Ginko Bioworks, S14 Notable Labs, W15 Transcriptic, W15 Industrial Microbes, W15 Lygos, W16 C16 Biosciences, S18 CB Therapeutics, S18 Cytera CellWorks, S18 Hepatx, S18 Borderline: HistoWiz, W16 Forever Labs, S17 Ambercycle, F2 [1] Lab Spend - https://labspend.com https://labspend.com

rheffern 8y ago

Though the line of best fit seems to fit well to an exponential for now, it is likely a sigmoid in the end [0]. The real trick is figuring out when you've reached the 50% mark, as any physiologist will tell you! ;) Also, I might as well mention that I'm a recent bio-eng grad that posts in the 'Who's hiring?' threads still. Details in my profile page. And, sorry to be so blatantly self promoting. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmoid_function https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmoid_function

duxup 8y ago

"I define “bio” at YC as anything enabled by biology and anything in healthcare. In healthcare, this includes medical devices, tools, therapeutics, diagnostics, and healthcare IT" Healthcare IT... not what I would think of as Bio. As noted in the quote if it is "anything in healthcare" that just seems like, healthcare.

jf- 8y ago
You can have non-healthcare applications of biology (e.g. agriculture, materials) and non-bio applications in healthcare (e.g. patient management systems). It’s not a great definition.
firstplacelast 8y ago
Diagnostics and therapeutics are largely (completely?) bio-based. It generally requires a great deal of cellular and/or genomic research. Medical devices also involve some heavy biology related research. However, healthcare IT generally has nothing to do with biology.
the_watcher 8y ago
I had this thought at first too, but there's a more granular breakdown: 74% healthcare, of which 34% are IT, 28% are diagnostics, 24% are therapeutics, 14% are devices. Using that info, taking what I consider the most reasonable strict approach (exclude IT, diagnostics, and devices), you'd exclude ~64% of the defined companies. Without a complete listing of the companies considered, it's hard to gauge how strict you'd need to be in order to be precise, but since the point of this post is to highlight that bio and hard tech companies are being actively funded by YC and have been for a while now, I think the author's assumptions were pretty reasonable.
dang 8y ago
Ok, we've added "and healthcare" to the title above.
breck 8y ago
I don't have any experience in Healthcare IT but I'm curious why you say you wouldn't think of that as bio? I work at a bioinformatics lab and have been surprised by the big disconnect between the mountains of real-time clinical data produced by healthcare each day, versus the relative trickle of data we get in our lab (after IRB, et cetera). Seems like there is a lot of room for innovation in Healthcare IT that could connect to bio-research and make the whole research system more like modern software updates versus the box software(research papers) of the 80's.

erohead 8y ago

If you're interested, YC maintains a list of all the public (ie launched) companies. You can sort by category as well: http://www.ycombinator.com/companies http://www.ycombinator.com/companies

jedberg 8y ago

And yet no cure for cancer! I kid, but actually there are a few YC companies literally working on cures for cancer, and every time I see one I think, "That's the kid of swing for the fences YC is known for, good luck to them!".

kateybatey8 8y ago

woohoo!

doublerebel 8y ago

Really excited to hear this now!! I've been watching the job postings appear for HumanDx and I'm looking forward to what the YC companies can achieve together. I think in healthcare it's particularly important to understand the "user(s)." YC companies have a great opportunity to use smart startup techniques to make healthcare more accessible and more successful.

jacquesm 8y ago

If you don't have a lab you are not into bio. That said there are a lot of companies that are trying real hard to replace their labs with software.

ArtWomb 8y ago

And congrats to Ginko on recent $120M deal with Cronos Group. Engineering yeast strains that can produce full-spectrum of cannabinoids via fermentation at factory scale. Really exciting! https://thecronosgroup.com/investor-relations/ https://thecronosgroup.com/investor-relations/

jamestimmins 8y ago
Mind explaining what this means and why it's exciting?
- ArtWomb 8y ago
  Maybe some Ginko peeps can chime in ;) But I'm very impressed with the scale. $100M is ballpark scale of all cannabis US research funding per annum. And most trials investigate CBD, THC. There are hundreds of other cannabinoid compounds worth investigating. Providing high quality samples to researchers will result in discoveries. A single cannabis breakthrough treatment changes the entire game. Plus, expertise for Ginko with synthesizing cannabinoids conceivably translates to opiods and myriad other medicinal plants compounds.

abdullahkhalids 8y ago

That's nice. But can someone list out the notable ones which have solved important problems.