Deadline Date: February 11, 2025
Grant Size: Not Available
Y Combinator is accepting applications for the Spring 2025 Batch funding cycle. The batch will take place from April to June in San Francisco.
YC is a three month program. They now run YC four times a year, in the winter, spring, summer, and fall.
The Goal
- The overall goal of YC is to help startups really take off. They arrive at YC at all different stages. Some haven’t even started working yet, and others have been launched for a year or more. But whatever stage a startup is at when they arrive, their goal is to help them to be in dramatically better shape 3 months later.
- For most startups, better shape translates into two things: to have a better product with more users, and to have more options for raising money.
- Startups at all stages benefit from the intensity of YC. That’s probably the best word to describe the atmosphere. For 3 months, it’s all startup, all the time. Everyone around you—them, the other founders in your batch, the alumni, the speakers, the investors—wants to help your startup succeed. In that atmosphere it’s hard not to be highly motivated. And that kind of extraordinary motivation is what one needs to do something as difficult as starting a startup.
- Many founders describe the 11 weeks leading up to Demo Day as the most productive period in their lives. Though YC continues after the 3 month cycle, and the alumni community is an increasingly valuable resource, those 11 weeks are still the most important thing. You can’t make people something they’re not, but the right conditions can bring out the best in them. And since most people have way more potential than they realize, they’re often surprised by what they’re capable of.
Funding Information
- YC invests $500,000 in every company on standard terms. Their $500K investment is made on 2 separate safes:
- They invest $125,000 on a post-money safe in return for 7% of your company (the “$125k safe”)
- They invest $375,000 on an uncapped safe with a Most Favored Nation (“MFN”) provision (the “MFN safe”)
Eligibility Criteria
- On average, 40% of the companies they fund in each batch are just an idea. Most don’t have any revenue. While YC does also fund companies that are far along, the majority of the companies they fund will always be companies at the very earliest stage. They recommend applying for YC as soon as you have a founding team and an idea you are excited about.
- They’ll consider startups in any field. They’ve funded companies that make everything from microbes to fusion reactors to coffee carts
- They regularly accept solo founders. That said, their advice remains that one-person startups are tough and you’re more likely to succeed with a co-founder.
- You can certainly apply when you are a full-time student or employee, but they expect the founders to commit to working full-time on their company during the batch and afterwards if accepted.
For more information, visit Y Combinator.
