Timeline of Y Combinator

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This is a timeline of Y Combinator, an American seed accelerator.

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Year Month and date Event type Details
2005 March 1 Y Combinator is founded by Paul Graham, Jessica Livingston, Trevor Blackwell and Robert Tappan Morris.[1].[2]
2005 November Paul Graham writes an article entitled Startups in 13 Sentences, which gives a list of advices and principles to startups.[3]
2006 January Paul Graham writes an article entitled How to Do What You Love, which gives insights into the importance of developing personal interests and choosing work that brings long-term fulfillment over short-term gratification.[4][5]
2006 May Paul Graham writes an essay entitled How to Be Silicon Valley, arguing that a tech hub must have nerds and people with money, and proposing next tech hubs, like Boulder and Portland.[6][7]
2007 March Paul Graham publishes essay entitled Why To Not Not Start A Startup, which consists of his detailed responses to 16 doubts people typically have about launching their own tech business.[8]
2009 January Y Combinator announces that the Cambridge program would be closed and all future programs would take place in Silicon Valley.[9]
2010 Early year Harjeet Taggar joins YC as an advisor.[10]
2010 September Alexis Ohanian joins Y Combinator.[11]
2010 October Paul Graham writes essay entitled What We Look for in Founders, summarizing a set of qualities sought in startup founders.[12]
2010 November Y Combinator announces two new partners: American entrepreneur Paul Buchheit, and Harj Taggar, a former participant in the YC program hired to help advise startups.[13][14][15]
2011 January Yuri Milner starts automatically backing all Y Combinator companies, with each start-up receiving US$150,000 from Milner and investor Ron Conway.[16][17]
2011 January Garry Tan joins Y Combinator, first as designer-in-residence and later as partner.[18][19]
2011 Aaron Iba joins as a partner.[20]
2013 August Paul Graham writes essay entitled How to Convince Investors.[21]
2013 September Paul Graham writes essay entitled How to Raise Money, which focuses on phase 2 fundraising.[22]
2013 September Paul Graham announces Y Combinator would fund nonprofit organizations accepted into its program after having tested the concept with Watsi (while continuing to fund mostly for-profit startups).[23]
2013 October Y Combinator opens a satellite office in San Francisco.[24][25][26]
2014 February Paul Graham announces Sam Altman would take over as President of Y Combinator.[27]
2014 March YC hosts its first annual Female Founders Conference.[28]
2014 March YC graduates its first class of nonprofit organizations. The six graduates of the program are expected to further their social missions by focusing on their business model rather than solely relying on donations.[29]
2014 April 22 "We have a new standard deal at YC—we’ll invest $120k for 7%. While we may deviate from this in exceptional cases, it will still be the case for almost all of the companies we fund."[30]
2014 April YC Combinator starts expanding its reach to back biotechnology start-ups.[31]
2015 February YC hosts its second annual Female Founders Conference.[32]
2015 March Team Peter Thiel joins Y Combinator as one of 10 part-time partners.[33]
2015 March A four-hour invite-only crash course by Sam Altman is held at the seed fund's headquarters to teach new angel investors how to "evaluate founders and their ideas and how angels can be helpful to companies they invest in".[34]
2015 May Taggar leaves Y Combinator.[35][36]
2015 July Y Combinator introduces the YC Fellowship Program aimed at companies at an earlier stage than the main program.[37]
2015 August 26 Fortune calls Y Combinator "a spawning ground for emerging tech giants".[38]
2015 October Y Combinator introduces the YC Continuity Fund. The fund allows Y Combinator to make pro rata investments in their alumni companies with valuations under US$300 million. Y Combinator also considers leading or participating in later stage growth financing rounds for YC companies.[39]
2015 October YC introduces YC Research to fund long-term fundamental research. YC President Sam Altman donates US$ 10million.[40]
2015 October Nonprofit research lab YC Research is announced. Researchers would be paid as full-time employees and be able to receive equity in Y Combinator.[40][41][42]
2015 November Garry Tan leaves Y Combinator.[19]
2016 January Y Combinator announces version 2 of the program, with participating companies receiving US$ 20,000 investment for a 1.5% equity stake. The equity stake is structured as a convertible security that only converts into shares if a company has an IPO, or a funding event or acquisition that values the company at US$ 100 million or more.[43]
2016 January YC announces its intention to run basic income experiment with giving people enough money to subsist. The small pilot program is set to run in Oakland, California, where some people would receive a fixed set of money every month.[44][45][46]
2016 August 11 Y Combinator announces that YC partners would be visiting 11 countries during the fall to meet with founders and learn more about how they can be helpful to international startup communities. These 11 countries are Nigeria, Denmark, Portugal, Sweden, Germany, Russia, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Israel, and India.[47][48]
2016 September "Sam Altman announced that the fellowship will be discontinued."
2017 January Team YC recruits the American Civil Liberties Union as an advisor on immigration, after the group has successfully stopped President Donald Trump’s ban on immigrants from certain nations.[49]
2017 Y Combinator announces Startup School.[50]
2017 Australian quantum physicist Michael Nielsen becomes research fellow at YC Research.[51]
2017 June Recognition Forbes ranks YC one of two "Platinum Plus Tier U.S. Accelerators".[52]
2017 June 16 1,584 companies complete Y Combinator’s online Startup School Founders Track program, a figure out of 2,820 startups accepted from the 13,321 companies that applied to Y Combinator’s 10-week program of one-on-one mentorship from past YC startup founders, virtual office hours with a group of fellow students, and an online lecture series.[53]
2018 July 18 Y Combinator announces a new batch of startup school.[54]
2018 Summertime Y Combinator reaches US$100 billion in market value for their portfolio of 1867 startups they’ve invested in since 2005.[55]
2018 August Team Chinese-American engineer Qi Lu joins YC as the Head of YC Research and to run YC China.[56][57]
2018 September 28 Y Combinator announces it will increase the size of its investments to US$ 150,000 for 7 percent equity starting with its winter 2019 batch.[24][58][59][60]
2018 YC companies raise over US$ 964 million across 97 Series in the year.[61]
2019 March It is reported that Y Combinator would be moving headquarters to San Francisco.[62][24]
2019 May 20 Y Combinator announces Geoff Ralston as new President of YC.[63] Meanwhile, Sam Altman would be transitioning to Chairman to spend more time focusing on Open AI.[64][65]

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See also

External links

References

  1. Graham, Paul (March 15, 2012). "How Y Combinator Started". Y Combinator. Retrieved 18 June 2019. 
  2. "Y Combinator". crunchbase.com. Retrieved 18 June 2019. 
  3. "Startups in 13 Sentences". paulgraham.com. Retrieved 24 June 2019. 
  4. Wilder, Jake. "How to Avoid the Trap of the Overwhelmed.". medium.com. Retrieved 24 June 2019. 
  5. "How to Do What You Love". paulgraham.com. Retrieved 24 June 2019. 
  6. oshiro, dana. "The Advantages of Launching Outside of the Valley". readwrite.com. Retrieved 24 June 2019. 
  7. "How to Be Silicon Valley". paulgraham.com. Retrieved 24 June 2019. 
  8. "YC Founder's Response To 16 Common Doubts About Starting A Startup". 10xmanagement.com. Retrieved 24 June 2019. 
  9. Graham, Paul (January 2009). "California Year-Round". Y Combinator. Retrieved 18 June 2019. 
  10. "Paul Buchheit, Creator of Gmail, Leaves Facebook for Y Combinator". mashable.com. Retrieved 23 June 2019. 
  11. Wednesday, September 1st, 2010 (2010-09-01). "Reddit Cofounder Alexis Ohanian To Join Y Combinator". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2012-02-28. 
  12. "What We Look for in Founders". paulgraham.com. Retrieved 24 June 2019. 
  13. Kincaid, Jason. "Y Combinator Names First New Partners Since 2005: Paul Buchheit And Harj Taggar". techcrunch.com. Retrieved 18 June 2019. 
  14. "Y Combinator announces two new partners, Paul Buchheit and Harj Taggar". news.ycombinator.com. Retrieved 18 June 2019. 
  15. Graham, Paul (2010-11-12). "Y Combinator announces two new partners, Paul Buchheit and Harj Taggar". Y Combinator Posterous. Retrieved 18 June 2019. 
  16. Arrington, Michael. "Start Fund: Yuri Milner, SV Angel Offer EVERY New Y Combinator Startup $150k". techcrunch.com. Retrieved 18 June 2019. 
  17. "Hacker News". news.ycombinator.com. Retrieved 18 June 2019. 
  18. Melanson, Mike (2011-01-14). "Posterous Co-Founder Garry Tan Leaves for Y Combinator". Readwriteweb.com. Retrieved 18 June 2019. 
  19. 19.0 19.1 "Former Y Combinator Partner Garry Tan on What Too Many Startups Get Wrong". Fortune. Retrieved 18 June 2019. 
  20. Tan, Garry (January 23, 2012). "Welcome Garry and Aaron". Y Combinator Posthaven. Retrieved 18 June 2019. 
  21. "How to Convince Investors". paulgraham.com. Retrieved 24 June 2019. 
  22. "How to Raise Money". paulgraham.com. Retrieved 24 June 2019. 
  23. Ken Yeung (6 September 2013). "Y Combinator To Fund Non-Profit Startups With Charitable Donations". The Next Web. Retrieved 18 June 2019. 
  24. 24.0 24.1 24.2 "The Silicon Valley exodus continues". techcrunch.com. Retrieved 19 June 2019. 
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  26. Lawler, Ryan. "As More Startups Move To San Francisco, Y Combinator Opens A Satellite Office In The City". techcrunch.com. Retrieved 19 June 2019. 
  27. Graham, Paul (February 21, 2014). "Sam Altman for President". Y Combinator. Retrieved 18 June 2019. 
  28. Livingston, Jessica. "What We Learned From 40 Female YC Founders". blog.ycombinator.com. Retrieved 24 June 2019. 
  29. "Calif. Tech Companies Aim to Help Charities Start Business Ventures". philanthropy.com. Retrieved 24 June 2019. 
  30. Altman, Sam. "The New Deal". blog.ycombinator.com. Retrieved 19 June 2019. 
  31. "Start-up investor bets on biotech". nature.com. Retrieved 24 June 2019. 
  32. "Female founders explain what it takes to start your own company". businessinsider.com. Retrieved 24 June 2019. 
  33. "Welcome Peter". Y Combinator Posthaven. Retrieved 23 June 2019. 
  34. Kosoff, Maya. "Angel investing is so huge, there's a 4-hour crash course to teach people how to do it". businessinsider.com. Retrieved 24 June 2019. 
  35. Former YC Partner Harj Taggar Is Building The New Technical Hiring Pipeline With TripleByte (May 7, 2015), Kim-Mai Cutler, TechCrunch
  36. Loizos, Connie. "Garry Tan Says Goodbye to Y Combinator". techcrunch.com. Retrieved 18 June 2019. 
  37. Loizos, Connie (July 20, 2015). "Y Combinator Just Introduced a New Program to Reach Up to "1,000" Companies Per Year". TechCrunch. Retrieved 18 June 2019. 
  38. Rao, Leena (2015-08-26). "Meet Y Combinator's New COO". Fortune. Retrieved 2016-02-08. 
  39. Altman, Sam (October 15, 2015). "YC Continuity". Y Combinator. Retrieved 18 June 2019. 
  40. 40.0 40.1 Altman, Sam (October 7, 2015). "YC Research". Y Combinator Posthaven. Retrieved 18 June 2019. 
  41. Yeung, Ken. "Sam Altman commits $10M to start Y Combinator research lab". VentureBeat. 
  42. Newton, Casey (7 October 2015). "Y Combinator is launching its own in-house moonshot group". The Verge. Vox Media. 
  43. "Fellowship V2". Y Combinator Posthaven. Retrieved 18 June 2016. 
  44. "YCR is a non-profit research lab". Y Combinator Research. Retrieved 18 June 2016. 
  45. Dale, Brady. "Y Combinator and GiveDirectly Move on Basic Income". observer.com. Retrieved 24 June 2019. 
  46. "Money for Nothing: A Bold Plan for the Future of Work". columbia.edu. Retrieved 24 June 2019. 
  47. Manalac, Kat. "YC Office Hours in 11 Countries This Fall". Y Combinator Posthaven. Retrieved 18 June 2019. 
  48. Modgil, Shweta. "YCombinator Is Coming To India This September; Here's Why You Should Be Excited". Inc 42. Retrieved 18 June 2019. 
  49. "Silicon Valley's Peter Thiel Finally Cuts Ties with Y Combinator". breitbart.com. Retrieved 24 June 2019. 
  50. "1500+ startups graduate Y Combinator's first online Startup School". TechCrunch. Retrieved 18 June 2019. 
  51. "Michael Nielsen". michaelnielsen.org. Retrieved 18 June 2019. 
  52. "The Best Startup Accelerators Of 2017". Forbes. 
  53. Constine, Josh. "1500+ startups graduate Y Combinator's first online Startup School". techcrunch.com. Retrieved 19 June 2019. 
  54. "Announcing Startup School 2018". blog.ycombinator.com. Retrieved 19 June 2019. 
  55. Paris, Martine. "Y Combinator Hits $100 Billion: Interview With YC Co-Founder Jessica Livingston". medium.com. Retrieved 23 June 2019. 
  56. Altman, Sam. "YC China + Qi Lu". YCombinator. Retrieved 14 August 2018. 
  57. "Y Combinator is launching a startup program in China". TechCrunch. Retrieved 23 June 2019. 
  58. Clark, Kate. "Y Combinator is changing up the way it invests". techcrunch.com. Retrieved 19 June 2019. 
  59. "Y Combinator is changing up the way it invests". oklahoman.com. Retrieved 19 June 2019. 
  60. "How YC Has Changed". news.ycombinator.com. Retrieved 19 June 2019. 
  61. "Investors". ycombinator.com. Retrieved 23 June 2019. 
  62. Kawamoto, Dawn (March 11, 2019). "Venture capital powerhouse is latest Silicon Valley firm to open San Francisco office". www.bizjournals.com. San Francisco Business Times. Retrieved 18 June 2019. 
  63. Altman, Sam. "Geoff Ralston for President". Y Combinator. Retrieved 18 June 2019. 
  64. Combinator, Y. "Updates from YC". Y Combinator. Retrieved 2019-03-11. 
  65. "Y Combinator president Sam Altman steps down to focus on OpenAI". VentureBeat. 2019-03-08. Retrieved 2019-05-27.