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The new YC batch is from 23 countries
- pg 13y agoCorrection: 22. The founder I thought was from Finland is actually from Slovenia.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- selmnoo 13y agoIn the past you've said that investors need to be able to see startup founders face to face (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6850199 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6850199), so how will arrangements work out with this batch? Are the founders going to be traveling back and forth to see you guys? Are you going to encourage them to try to relocate here? (but obviously that'll be difficult, you're one of the voices in the FWD.us initiative so you know that, will you encourage them to try to relocate in spite of that?).
- pg 13y agoWe ask all the startups we fund to come to SV Jan through March. Whether they stay afterward depends on whether they want to, and whether the government lets them. Some are making things for their local market (e.g. Glio, in the last batch), and for those it makes sense to go back to their home countries afterward even if they can get US visas.
- selmnoo 13y agoAlso, can you please say 22 out of how many? (that is, what is the total number of accepted startups?) Additionally: 22 seems like a big number. Almost as if this time around the YC partners sat together and said "hey, let's try to get a lot of overseas startups this time around and see what happens". I notice that there have been "themes" in different seasons of YC... for example, in one of the previous seasons, you said that when reviewing applications you'd give high preference to startups doing things with electronics, robots, etc. - so, indeed this really seems like a sort of an experiment as if you're curious to see and learn how startups from abroad do things. Two questions in line of this: 1) What are you hoping to learn from this class? 2) What are you expecting to see (any hypotheses?)?
- rdl 13y agoIt's on the order of 100 founders, I'm pretty sure (within 50%). 50-60 companies. The chances it would vary greatly from previous batches absent any other announcement are pretty low.
- pg 13y agoAround 75, including the nonprofits. We're never sure of the exact number at this stage, because some we accept at interviews explode on the starting line, and we sometimes accept late applications. It wasn't any kind of deliberate choice by us. I was surprised how many seemed to be from other countries this batch. I would guess it's because we're getting more applications from overseas.
- pg 13y agoAnother correction: I should have said za instead of sa.
- S4M 13y agoDo they have strong foreign accents?
- pg 13y agoFor the most part not so strong that it's hard to understand what they're saying, which is the critical threshold. There are a few I'm worried about though.
- Keyframe 13y agowhich one from .hr? :)
- darq 13y agoI would also like to know :)
- pg 13y agoSince people have been asking about this on Twitter too: I can't name individual founders or companies. Since there is some news value in the fact that a startup is funded by YC, we leave it to the companies to disclose when it's most useful to them, e.g. when they launch, or launch something new.
- fudged71 13y agoWe were scheduled for the last day of interviews and were asked to show up early, so I decided to attend all six days of interviews this batch. I was truly impressed how diverse the startups were. It's striking to me that there were startup founders from towns and cities around the world where they didn't know any other startups or advisors that could help them. I'm glad that communities like HN exist online to provide a community for everyone.
- cperciva 13y agoIs this the countries of which people are citizens (including citizenship inherited from immigrant parents), countries in which people were born (including those who immigrated as children), or countries in which founders are currently resident? The latter would be most impressive (and the most natural interpretation of "from" in my mind), but I'm guessing it's one of the first two.
- namenotrequired 13y agoCitizenships. https://twitter.com/paulg/status/411936288904728576 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/411936288904728576
- OoTheNigerian 13y agoI see SS. Is that South Sudan? That will be terrific. Is this the first time YC is going so international? Was it deliberate? Why? Congratulations to all those in this batch. Best of luck.
- pg 13y agoYes, Sudan. No, we've funded lots of startups from overseas in the past. I remember one batch a few years ago that was 20% international.
- rdl 13y agoSudan (SD) and South Sudan (SS) are distinct entities now. If you funded someone from SS, I'll be super interested in meeting them/figuring out which project it is (presumably one of the non-profits). Regular Sudan is a lot more normal.
- pg 13y agoOops, all I know is that this founder is from Sudan.
- thomseddon 13y agoQuestion: on what visa do most non US citizens attend YC? My understating is that a B1/2 would not be compatible with the nature of the work, E1's take around 6 months and require around $100,000 per founder and H1B's are like gold dust (and they also take months and still not sure it would workable) I have a vested interest in the answer to this, thanks.
- hpagey 13y agoI am curious about this too. Though B1/2 may seem appropriate for YC, I am not sure how they get around the fact that you are not supposed to "work" for any employer.
- thomseddon 13y agoI agree however my suspicion is that it has still been used.
- argonaut 13y agoFrom my very limited interaction with the YC network, it is quite common to use B1/2 visas. Also in some cases YC founders will get O-1 (genius) visas, though I've only seen those happen during or after YC (my guess is that after investment you can then get your big-brand-name investors to vouch for your "genius" as a formality). Right or wrong, as an entrepreneur you should be scrappy and you will need to bend the rules.
- oceanician 13y agoI wonder how many are merely 'consulting' or not even that, just on a 3 month tourist?
- vowelless 13y agoau -- Australia bg -- Bulgaria ca -- Canada hr -- Croatia dk -- Denmark eg -- Egypt fi -- Finland fr -- France in -- India il -- Israel kr -- South Korea nz -- New Zealand om -- Oman pt -- Portugal ro -- Romania sg -- Singapore si -- Slovenia sa -- Saudi Arabia ss -- South Sudan ch -- Switzerland tr -- Turkey uk -- United Kingdom us -- United States
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- sfeats 13y agoI've always wondered how they all find affordable-ish places to live down there. Does YC help with that?
- karamazov 13y agoYC's investment + the startfund money is enough to pay for a place to live, even if it's an expensive short-term lease. (Companies find places to live on their own. When you're going to be in a particular apartment/home for 3-12 months you don't need to overoptimize for the last few hundred dollars in rent; it's better to find a place you like and get to work.)
- raldi 13y agoMap: https://chart.googleapis.com/chart?cht=map:fixed=-60,180,80,180&chs=600x350&chld=AU|BG|CA|HR|DK|EG|FI|FR|IN|IL|KR|NZ|OM|PT|RO|SG|SI|SA|SS|CH|TR|GB|US&chco=B3BCC0|FF6600 https://chart.googleapis.com/chart?cht=map:fixed=-60,180,80,...
- GrahamsNumber 13y agoinverse
- selmnoo 13y agoWoah! Very interesting variety. I was expecting all Germany, UK, Ireland, etc. but this is much more interesting than that. On a separate note: I want to say kudos to pg & the team for doing this. pg found himself in hot waters when he made the remark about not preferring founders with strong English accents. Actions speak louder than words, so I have to really hand it to them for doing this, this is the best possible thing they could have done in response to the harsh reaction they received.
- jonp 13y ago"UK" doesn't seem to be shown on the map. I think "UK" should be replaced by "GB" in the URL.
- raldi 13y agoFixed, with just moments to spare.
- malandrew 13y agoSurprised that there is no Latin American country represented.
- pg 13y agoSorry, I should have used za instead of sa. Also the fi was a mistake.
- anovikov 13y agoI see no Russia, have there been a lot of Russian founders before? I don't think so, i have more or less followed YC and haven't heard of one. Why is that? Lack of interest from Russians or some specific flaw common to them which leads to their rejection?
- presty 13y agoEv Kontsevoy (Mailgun) is from Russia
- anovikov 13y agoand that's it? well, i may understand that it's not about discrimination. culture in the Russian IT field is quite hostile to startups, the whole idea isn't much respected, so my bet is that there was simply too little interest from Russian applicants, not a low pass rate.
- pg 13y agoThere have been others. The founders of RethinkDB and Accunote are Russian.
- rdl 13y agoAcunote founders are Ukrainian, not Russian.
- YuriNiyazov 13y agoand aerofs i believe.
- notpg 13y agoI love the diversity, and I think it's perhaps a true sign that we're moving away from the zukerberg-model startup.
- ismail 13y agowhats the Zuckerberg model startup?
- gametheoretic 13y agoAn excuse.
- notpg 13y agowhite, middle-class american college dropout
- ismail 13y agowow this is awesome. and would it be the first African entrepreneurs ib YC?
- sergiotapia 13y agoHave there ever been latinamerican startups on YC?
- presty 13y agohttp://techcrunch.com/2013/08/06/glio/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/06/glio/