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YC Portfolio Stats
- nayefc 12y ago"Total market cap of all YC companies: >$30 billion" According to who?
- HistoryInAction 12y agoCan you include a stat about (order of magnitude?) jobs created?
- craft_ 12y agoHow do you keep track of how much the companies raise after leaving YC?
- epaladin 12y agoThat sort of data usually makes it into CrunchBase eventually...
- _craft 12y agoCrunchbase isn't the most reliable, so I was wondering if they surveyed their companies, etc.
- maxbrown 12y agoAs a past investor in all of the companies, I assume they would be informed about the future rounds and updated cap tables.
- rubiquity 12y ago> But we don’t keep statistics on total revenue Ahhh, yet another reminder as to what matters and what doesn't in the game of VC.
- mbesto 12y agoor for that matter - profits or earnings.
- mhartl 12y agoIt's important to criticize venture capital for the right reasons. VCs correctly care about value, not revenue or profit, but by itself this isn't a problem because the few most valuable companies typically dominate the returns, and they are virtually always insanely profitable in the long run. VCs thus don't deserve derision for not caring about revenue or profit in the short term. On the other hand, because only the top few companies matter to a VC's returns, the VC's incentives are not always well-aligned with the interests of the founders. This is because VCs can invest in a large number of companies and thus realize the expected value of their investments (due to the law of large numbers [2]). Founders, on the other hand, even if they are insanely prolific, can probably only start a handful of companies in a lifetime, and are thus exposed to a much higher variance in outcomes. For example, if the founders have a choice between a 50% chance of making a $50m company (expected value $25m) and a 1% chance of making a $10b company (expected value $100m), VCs have a strong incentive to push for the latter, even though most founders would prefer the former. This mismatch of incentives, not a lack of focus on revenue or profit, is the real problem with VC (at least from a founder's point of view). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_present_value https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_present_value [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers
- shawndrost 12y agoVCs actually have a solution to this incentive mismatch: when you ask a not-yet-wealthy founder to swing for the fences (which typically happens during an investment round) you invite them to take some of the investment money out of the company and into their personal accounts.
- emmett 12y agoHow could YC possibly keep statistics on revenue for the entire portfolio? Sam isn't saying "we don't care about revenue", he's saying "we don't have any way to keep statistics on the total revenue of all portfolio companies". Those are very very different statements.
- chuckcode 12y agoLots of success stories there with a 10x of investment and many jobs and fortunes made. But also interesting to see just how hard it is to succeed big with 20 of 716 (2.8%) making it to $100M valuation so far even among this every elite set of entrepreneurs given only 3% of the current batch's applicants were accepted.
- nostromo 12y agoNote the power-law distribution; Airbnb and Dropbox are ~2/3rds of the entire portfolio. And at least 80% of the portfolio value comes from 23 companies - about 3% of companies funded.
- jcrjcr 12y agoThat's the nature of startups. Most don't succeed. I don't think YC would make a claim that they are some automatic path to success, just that they help good ideas to get there
- mfrommil 12y agoAlthough having a 3% (or greater based on what happens in the future) shot at your startup becoming worth $100M has got to be significantly better than the odds of any other startup reaching a $100M valuation.
- EricDeb 12y agoNote that's 3% of the startups that get into YC... which has a 3% acceptance rate.
- nedwin 12y ago"Number of nuclear energy companies in the current batch: 2" Awesome. I can't seem to find these two companies yet - have they announced or still under the rader?
- kevando 12y ago"it generally takes companies a few years to get above [$100 million valuation]" Sama, dropping knowledge...
- arete888 12y agothe idea of a nuclear energy startup is slightly frightening. v. interested to see what they're working on.
- abstractbill 12y agoThat is awesome. Have there been any aviation/aerospace companies yet?
- hornbaker 12y agoYep.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- vonklaus 12y agoFireFly is a new space company in the micro-launch space. Not a YC company (to my knowledge) but they seem like a cool start up. They have some SpaceX talent on the team. They had an announcement of their new vehicle on their site but maybe they have gone into stealth mode because I cant find it right now.
- ar7hur 12y agoVery impressive. I'd love to know how many out of the 716 companies funded so far are still in business per se as independent entities? And among those that are not anymore, what was the exit (successful exit vs. soft landing / acquihire vs. death). I suspect it's really hard to track though, and somewhat subjective.
- dm2 12y agoIt wouldn't be too difficult to pay someone a minimal amount to maintain a very detailed spreadsheet of every company that passes through YCombinator and record every stat they can find (and attempt to track how that changes over time). Some columns could be deleted if they are determined to not provide value obviously. This might allow some interesting patterns to help filter future companies and let them know where the money is best allocated. Optimizing return on investment seems like it would be the most important part of YCombinator, then again I'm not a venture capitalist (but would love to be one some day). I'm sure this is done somewhat at every incubator / startup investment group but it might be determined to be too valuable to release publicly, but at least a list of companies would be appreciated (all companies, not just the wildly successful ones). Some possible stats off of the top of my head (per company): - industry, location, target market - founder's specialties (marketing, financial, developers). in-house developer or outside contractors. age of founders, university attended - expected revenue after 1 year, 2 years, 5 years. actual revenue after those times - number of users, number of paying customers, average revenue per customer. time from conception to first sale Some of this might be information that they don't want to share, but if willing it would be wonderful to see. Just every data point possible that might offer some kind of correlation between extreme success / moderate success / failure.
- tlrobinson 12y agoLike http://yclist.com/ http://yclist.com/ ? Looks fairly up to date, but I'm not sure how accurate it is. I recall seeing a spreadsheet that included other similar programs but I can't find it right now.
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- pskittle 12y agoI wonder why they don't keep statistics on jobs created o rev generated, will be interesting to see quantifiable impact created by the YC community.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- 2arrs2ells 12y agoWhen going through YC, it was incredible how respectful the program was with founders' time. This happens during YC (no pointless meetings) and afterwards (no burdensome data reporting requirements).
- josefresco 12y agoI also was surprised (not shocked) to see that data missing. Not shocked because those in the "VC business" usually don't care so much, as long as the get a return on their investment, which could be accomplished without any meaningful revenue.
- ProAm 12y agoI'd be interested in this. I bet it is much smaller than any of us anticipate. I'd estimate <5000 jobs total as a high water mark.
- gtCameron 12y agoThat would be only 7 employees per company on average. I'm sure there are a lot that never got past the 1-2 range but there are also Dropbox and AirBnb on the other end. Those two combined have around 2,000 employees according to Crunchbase.
- mbesto 12y agoIn the FCC statement Alexis (YC Partner) mentioned 3,000 new jobs. To put this in perspective, SalesForce employs ~12,000 (4x that) and has roughly the same market cap ($30b). IMO, if I were YC I wouldn't be touting this number (nor am I indicating that they do currently). What's probably more important is how many new markets have been created, and therefore jobs, due to YC companies. A number which will be extremely difficult to measure unbiasly. Otherwise, this simply reinforces the notion that software is eating the world and developers are paid too much.
- asenna 12y agoThe three companies worth over a billion dollars being: Dropbox, Airbnb and.. I can't seem to remember the third one. Reddit?
- nayefc 12y agoWe'll see who's worth what when they hit the public market :)
- tlrobinson 12y agoStripe
- smeyer 12y agoStripe, I believe. Edit: Here's an article when they hit a $1.75B valuation: http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/22/with-an-eye-to-international-growth-payments-company-stripe-raises-80m-from-peter-thiel-khosla-and-sequoia-at-a-1-25b-valuation/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/22/with-an-eye-to-internationa...
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- xanderstrike 12y agoLast I heard (early 2013), Reddit was valued at 400-500 million. I can't imagine it's gotten much more than that.
- alain94040 12y agoreddit sold for no more than $20M according to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4530030 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4530030
- dutchbrit 12y agoOuch!
- huhtenberg 12y agoNumber of companies funded by YC so far: 716 Can you share how many are outright dead and how many are working, more or less, on the same idea that they started with?
- Spendar89 12y agoAnother commenter posted this link: http://yclist.com/ http://yclist.com/ According to it, 46 companies are "dead", 52 are "exited" and 445 are "active".
- mjffjm 12y agoyclist has a few errors, so not sure if it's all 100% accurate. To name a few: xobni - bought by yahoo and now shut down (listed as active) like.fm - dead, but listed as active Exec - listed as active, but was bought by Handybook Bump - listed active, but dead
- jcampbell1 12y ago> Total market cap of all YC companies The word "market" seems pretty strange here. Are there any YC companies with a "market" valuation?
- tomblomfield 12y agoYes - VC investment is a private market, but a market nonetheless.
- jcampbell1 12y agoI assume it is a combination of acquisition price or last VC valuation, or market cap of IPO'd companies (which I don't think there are any). It is a useful number, but calling it "market cap" seems strange to me.
- hornbaker 12y agoAny company which has sold equity, whether on the private or public markets, has a "market" valuation based on the per-share price. Private companies may also get a market valuation with a 409A valuation, but those are typically kept as low as legally justifiable for stock option attractiveness.
- crapshoot101 12y agoPerhaps, but it is a market valuation for preferred stock, not for common stock, a distinction when market valuation generally refers to the latter. Ie, companies doing a round at a $1B valuation aren't implicitly worth a billion$ - the liquidity preference affects it.
- edanm 12y agoSo conservatively, by market cap it looks like YC is doing 10X on their investment, which is very impressive. And this is conservatively, since the 3 billion in funding has already been handed out, but some of the companies that have received that funding haven't had a chance to grow and become valuable.
- sama 12y agothat's how much the companies have raised in total, not from us--we invest usually between 15-20k per company. and of course, investors only own a percentage of the companies, not nearly 100%.
- technotony 12y agoWay better return than that. Assuming they've invested $20k in each company so far (and not including current batch with the new investments but that's fair as there is no return from that) then they've invested $14MM or so for 6% of founders common stock. All that really matters is their ownership of the biggest companies, which will have raised a lot of money, but lets assume they got diluted 2/3rds and own 2% of airbnb/dropbox (I have little feel for how accurate that assumption is). Then the portfolio is worth about $600MM. That's an astonishing 40x return, and it's probably way better than that as we aren't seeing the full returns yet especially from the recent batches (a fairer analysis might be to only include companies 5 years old or something). The analysis I'd really like to see is a cohort analysis showing mean valuation by batch over time, but this might be misleading due to changing market conditions.
- johansch 12y agoThe frontpage (http://www.ycombinator.com http://www.ycombinator.com) now has a quote from Satya Nadella: “It’s fantastic to see the work Y Combinator is doing to foster innovation and entrepreneurship in the startup community and Hacker News is one of my favorite sources of pointers to hackers and their hacks!” What's his user name?
- aashaykumar92 12y agoI'm not saying he doesn't have a user name but a user name is not required to read HN and click on the links.
- bignaj 12y agoDid anyone else notice that Satya has quite a habit of using run-on sentences? I also thought this while reading his letter to employees.
- aroch 12y agoIt seems to be a fairly common occurrence in Indians who learned English as a second language (and I would guess other ethnic groups as well).
- bignaj 12y agoSatya has been in the US for quite a while though. For a C-level exec of such a prominent company you would think an editor could help or maybe it's something he could work on personally. I tried to chalk it up to "personal style" but it's really egregious. Might be a bit beyond what can qualify as "style" and more towards the "grammatically incorrect" side of the spectrum.
- lxmorj 12y agoBike shedding!
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- lukego 12y agoI would be really curious to know what the median outcome is for YC companies and their founders.
- johansch 12y agoAverage is about a 40M valuation. (Yeah, I know that's not exactly what you asked about.)
- arjunnarayan 12y agoI would bet that the median outcome is failure. Even within an impressive group, you're not going to escape the basic power law dynamics in starting companies.
- lukego 12y agoI mean, did the median founders have a good experience overall? What is the distribution of personal satisfaction amongst founders? (Is that a power law too where nearly everybody is miserable and wishes they stayed in school, but the billionaires are so happy that it averages out? :-))
- argonaut 12y agoFrom random anecdotal observations, the median outcome is that the startup fails and the founding team splits up to do other things. These things are the typical things that intelligent high-achievers do - engineers at other tech companies, PMs, biz dev. I see a disproportionate number working on their own ideas or joining other YC startups that are doing well.
- aashaykumar92 12y agoThe most impressive 'stat' about these stats is how little most of the startups were when they were accepted into YC. And the average goes on to raise ~$40M(taken from a existing comment on this thread). Take Airbnb as an example...probably no VC, and hardly any angels, would have ever invested in them at the stage YC did.
- alexmr 12y agoLooks like they'll get a 4th billion dollar company with machine zone if this round closes: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/07/16/newest-hit-game-maker-machine-zone-nears-3-billion-valuation/?mod=WSJBlog&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wsj%2Fbiztech%2Ffeed+(WSJ.com%3A+Business+Technology) http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/07/16/newest-hit-game-maker...
- hornbaker 12y agoWow. If that round closes, they'll have a bigger market cap than Zynga (currently only $2.7B).
- nl 12y agoFunding valuation != Market Cap
- karamazov 12y agoActually, they're the same thing: both are computed as (number of shares outstanding) * (price per share). The difference is that market cap is used for companies that have IPO'd (and therefore have a broad market for their shares with continuous price adjustments) versus companies that have raised money through private markets (and therefore have infrequent price adjustments). One can reasonably argue that valuations are less precise than market caps as a result, but both are dictated by sophisticated investors and should be more or less correct on average. (In fact, valuations are less precise, but this has a lot more to do with the amount of uncertainty inherent in any early-stage company than it does with the availability of shares on a public market; Wall St. has its ups and downs just like Silicon Valley.)
- nl 12y agoActually, they're the same thing: both are computed as (number of shares outstanding) (price per share).* No, they are not the same thing. They are calculated the same way, but Market in the phrase Market Cap means "public (share) markets". market cap is used for companies that have IPO'd [(] and therefore have a broad market for their shares with continuous price adjustments A pretty important distinction! If a share is "valued" at a price but there are no buyers then the valuation isn't shared by many others. To be clear: I understand that the math is the same, but a market cap shows the consensus view of the market, while a funding valuation only shows the value a small set of investors put on a company.
- outside1234 12y agoAll vanity stats. Where are the revenue and profit figures?
- dutchbrit 12y ago"But we don’t keep statistics on total revenue or jobs created, though I expect both numbers would be impressive." I find this rather odd, since these numbers actually mean a lot to YCombinator. You even blogged that YCombinator would like to create 1 million jobs recently (http://blog.ycombinator.com/new-rfs-one-million-jobs http://blog.ycombinator.com/new-rfs-one-million-jobs). How can you know you've reached one of your goals without even tracking the stats? Even though you don't have stats on revenue, do you at least keep track of profits? This seems like quite important/crucial information. Ps. Don't see this post as a bash - I think what you guys are doing is awesome! Cheers, Sam Granger
- beambot 12y agoOne plausible explanation... YC needs to be notified when portfolio companies take on new funding, upon which they will receive access to valuation and financing information (eg. so they can exercise any pro rata rights). They don't need to go out of their way to request this information, nor do they need to unduly burden their portfolio. For job and revenue information, they would need to directly reach out to portfolio companies and ask them to self-report. I'm sure most would... but it's not exactly passive.
- sama 12y agoWe hate asking portfolio companies to do any extra work for us. They notify all previous investors when they raise more money, so we have that information, but for jobs and revenue we'd have to ask them to take time to do something that would be helpful for us and not for them. (We may start asking for more company performance stats, since fewer and fewer companies have boards and it's valuable for companies to report this frequently. But that'd be because we thought it was in the best interest of the companies, not YC.)
- boomzilla 12y agoIs the number of employees always one of the first bullet points in board meeting Power Point slide? You could just add them all up.
- kremdela 12y agoI'd be interested to see the stats on valuations of companies that applied to YC but were rejected.
- dools 12y agoMarket cap usually only refers to publicly traded companies... Does that apply here?
- cottonseed 12y agoYou fund <3% of applicants. Surely this means you are passing up a lot of potential positive value. Just curious, what's the limiting factor for YC in scaling to more companies?
- JoeAltmaier 12y agoApplications continue to grow. So while percentage drops, # sponsored (was/is?) growing.
- outericky 12y agoThere are certainly tangible hurdles to scaling. Namely, number of partners. Quality support, advice is hard to do with a 100:1 ratio. Much better at 10:1. There's also physical space, but as we see, YC is opening up more space so that will scale slowly. But as these companies mature and maybe become partners themselves, that will scale too.
- joshdance 12y agoPower law. I wonder what companies make up 80% of these numbers.
- jedc 12y agoDropbox, AirBnB, and Stripe are the companies that have publicly achieved valuations of >$1Billion; those three alone likely drive 80%+ of the numbers.
- jlft 12y agoDoes YC own aprox. 5-7% of the $30B marketcap? Or is there dilution?
- jedc 12y agoThere's definitely dilution. YC gets common (aka founders) shares for their initial 5-7%, so they get diluted just like founders do.
- penfold26 12y agoI think an even better idea would be yclist.com or total YC websites calculated along with alexa ranking. That would give a great indication of who has been successful or not. Keep in mind YC also gets also significant press than normal startups so its expected that most should do ok at least.
- hamsternipples 12y agoNumber of YC companies Steve Jobs has worked at, so far: 0
- atroyn 12y agoI'd like to see some stats on the companies that failed after YC. How far did they get? Why did they fail? (e.g. failed to raise VS team exploded VS killed by competitor). This sort of info would be valuable to first-time founders, as they're the sorts of hazards you only typically learn to navigate by experiencing them first hand.