COMPANIES
YC Companies — The Database Founders Actually Use
YC has funded 5,000+ companies since 2005. The interesting questions aren't 'list them all' — they're which ones became unicorns, which failed, which pivoted to success, and what patterns separate the two.
Q1.Which YC companies are worth over $1 billion?
90+ YC alumni have reached unicorn status. Top by valuation: Stripe (~$70B), Airbnb (~$80B public), Coinbase (public ~$50B), Instacart (public), DoorDash (public ~$60B), Cruise, Reddit (public), Brex, Rippling, Faire, Gusto, Razorpay, Scale AI, Deel, Webflow, Retool, PostHog. The full YC unicorn list updates quarterly.
Q2.Which YC startups failed?
Roughly 50–60% of YC companies fail within 5 years — the same baseline as all VC-backed startups. Notable public shutdowns: Homejoy, Sprig, Tutorspree, Hipmunk (acquired then wound down), Standard Treasury, Wevorce. YC's batch-level survival rate is better than industry average partly because $500K + network extends runway.
Q3.Which YC startups pivoted to success?
Famous pivots: Slack (started as Tiny Speck/Glitch, a game company), Instagram (from Burbn, a location app), Twitch (from Justin.tv lifecasting), Brex (from VR, then SMB cards), Segment (pivoted from a classroom analytics tool), Retool (pivoted from a B2B marketplace). Pivot rate among accepted YC companies: ~30% within 18 months.
Q4.Which YC startups were acquired?
1,000+ YC companies have been acquired. Largest: Instacart-style outcomes aside, notable acquisitions include Heroku ($212M to Salesforce), Cruise ($1B+ to GM), Twitch ($970M to Amazon), Parse (to Facebook), Stamps/Doppler/Plaid-adjacent deals. Median YC acquisition is $10M–$50M, often acqui-hires.
Q5.Which YC companies are hiring right now?
YC maintains Work at a Startup (workatastartup.com) with 1,500+ active YC companies posting roles at any given time. Recent batches (S25, W25) hire most aggressively for senior engineers, GTM hires, and founding designers. Public listings are real, with direct-to-founder applications.
Q6.Which YC companies are profitable?
Public profitability is rare in early batches but common among Series A+ alumni. Known profitable YC companies: Gumroad, Wufoo (pre-acquisition), Mixmax, PostHog, Plausible Analytics-style indie SaaS, and many B2B SaaS in S15–S20 batches. Most YC unicorns (Stripe, Brex, Rippling) are not yet profitable by design.
Q7.Which YC companies are bootstrapped?
After YC's $500K SAFE, 'bootstrapped' usually means 'no further VC raised'. Companies that stayed lean post-YC: Gumroad (took a small later round but operates leanly), Wufoo (acquired profitably), Mailchimp (not YC but cited), several open-source/indie B2B SaaS that took only YC's $500K and never raised again.
Q8.Which YC companies started as side projects?
Many. Cited examples: Reddit (started by college students), Dropbox (Drew Houston's tool for himself), GitLab (open-source side project), Algolia (search engine side project), PostHog (open-source weekend builds), Razorpay (built while founders worked elsewhere). YC actively encourages founders to apply with side-project momentum.
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