YCombinator: Analysing the Accelerator’s Investments in its Alumni Companies

About YCombinator:

YCombinator (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator. It has been used to launch more than 3,000 companies since it was founded in 2005. YC companies have a combined valuation of over $600Bn. Companies like Airbnb, Dropbox, Stripe, Instacart, Coin base, Gusto, Quora, etc have started their journeys at YC.

Twice a year, YC invests in a large batch of start-ups and takes a percentage of ownership in those companies. Every batch goes through a 3-month program focused on helping them improve, grow, and secure funding. As of 2021, 10,000+ companies apply globally to every batch and only about 130–150 get funded (resulting in an acceptance rate of approximately -1%).

When the 3-month program is over, the companies become alumni and get access to tons of resources, an incredible alumni network, mentorship from some of the most successful people in Silicon Valley, the brand benefits as a YC alumnus and more.

Datachamps’ Deep Dive:

Data sources: We have obtained the data for this interactive dashboard from the YC website. In the first step, we acquired data on the total number of YC alumni companies, where they are based, what sector they belong to, etc. Post this, we conducted a special survey to get information on YC’s well-known companies viz. Stripe, Airbnb, DoorDash, Coinbase, Instacart, Razorpay, Truepill and Opensea. We collected data on how much investment these companies raised in each round, their market valuation, the total number of employees and other general information about the companies.

Dashboard: We designed an interactive dashboard using data analytics tools based on all the collated data. The database contains a total of 3,342 companies based in 374 cities from 77 countries. The dashboard contains four pages with various insightful assessments. All the data can be sliced and diced further based on year, batch, region, etc.

The first page gives a detailed overview of the sector-wise analysis of YC companies. We have different analyses like sector-wise cumulative number of companies, top 5 sector-wise investments annually, etc. Also, at the click of a button at the top, the same parameters can be checked country-wise. One of our key observations was that the top 5 sectors (technology, service, health, finance & B2B) contribute 98.1% of total companies, out of which technology accounts for the highest contribution of 59.7%. Also, the top 5 countries (USA, UK, India, Mexico, Canada) contribute 84.5% of total companies, out of which the USA has the highest, contributing 69.8%.

The second page of the data analytics dashboard contains a geographical analysis of the YC alumni companies. We can visualise the state-wise spread of companies in various countries across the globe. Also, we get information like which cities have the most companies. The YC headquarters are based in Mountain View California and the highest number of alumni companies are based in San Francisco at 1,049, which is 31.4% of the total. This is followed by New York at 263 companies and then Los Angeles at 99.

On the third page of the dashboard, we have provided an analysis of select YC companies. It provides a trend on how these companies raised funds in various funding rounds over the years and their market valuation. The last page provides an opportunity to do a side-by-side comparison of these companies.

This dashboard aids in evaluating and understanding the investments made by YCombinator over the years. It also gives a view of how various sectors are performing in different regions. Our analytics can help users to understand Ycombinator’s investment portfolio.