Unpacking Y Combinator W21 Demo Day — Our Favorites
Y Combinator is home to many of the worlds largest, most successful startups. These startups include, Airbnb, Doordash, Stripe, Coinbase, Rappi, and more. Y Combinator invests at seed stage, where a lot of companies come in with absolutely no revenue. It’s risky. Yet the startups that YC takes under its wings go on to raise millions of dollars afterwards. Once the program ends they have what is called Demo Day. The demo day that I will be focusing on is Winter 2021.
In this batch, there were 319 startups from 41 countries. Below are some stats.
YC W21 categories:
B2B Software and Services — 46%
Consumer — 14%
Education — 4%
Financial Technology and Services — 15%
Healthcare — 12%
Industrials — 6%
Real Estate and Construction — 3%
Founder demographics:
Women founders: 19% of the companies have a women founder, 10% of the founders are women
Black founders: 7% of the companies have a Black founder; 5% of the founders are Black
Latinx founders: 13% of the companies have a Latinx founder; 14% of the founders are Latinx
- Treinta — SMB Bookkeeping & Inventory Management Software
Company Description: Treinta is a digital ledger app for Latin American microbusinesses. Through Treinta, users can easily record transactions by assigning products from their inventory and see how their business metrics evolve in real time. The app helps owners save up to 30 minutes a day in bookkeeping related tasks and improve efficiency by over 30%. Out of the 50 million microbusinesses in LATAM, today 90% still track their sales and expenses by using pen and paper.
Thoughts 🤔 🧠: Startups like Treinta are tackling some of the most fundamental issues SMBs in latam face. The 90% of businesses that are still using pen & paper for bookkeeping/inventory purposes are exposing themselves to two possible scenarios: an overstock on perishable products which companies would take the loss on or a shortage of products. Many store owners just eye-ball when they are running low on stock and then call their producers. An improvement in SMB operations will dramatically change how banks and credit lenders view these businesses.
2. Hapi — Stock trading app with 0% commission and no minimums for LATAM
Description: Hapi democratizes access to the US stock market for consumers in Latam. Users can easily register, transfer the funds they want to invest, trade stocks in real time with no commissions, follow up their investments with all the relevant information, and thus generate returns!
Thoughts 🤔 🧠: Hapi is bringing new opportunities to people in the latin region with its app. Unlocking the chance to own a piece of some of the best companies in the world. A couple of months ago, I had the chance to speak with the founder, Dusko Kelez. He explained to me how big the opportunity was and how impactful the app can be for LATAM.
3. Firstbase.io — Incorporate in the US, from anywhere
Description: Firstbase.io helps companies incorporate in the US, from anywhere. Incorporation, bank accounts, legal advice from experts, and a community of founders — all in one place.
Thoughts 🤔 🧠: Wrote about Firstbase.io in a separate post.
Did I Invest?: YES!!!!
4. Chums — Shop Online Together
Description: Chums is a social shopping service that helps friends suggest products to their pals.
Thoughts 🤔 🧠: God I absolutely love this. There are tons of people who ask their friends for advice when shopping. 90% of millennials make purchases decisions based on what their friends think. Nowadays you can’t really trust online reviews.
5. HUBUC — Embedded Fintech
Description: A single API-platform which allows any business to embed financial services capabilities into their products.
Thoughts 🤔 🧠: Embedded finance is super important in the future of software companies. The popular A16z quote, “Every company will be a fintech company”, defines this. Companies like Uber, Rappi, Twitch, and Walmart are embedding financial service offerings into their platform to grow their respective ecosystems and generate new revenues.
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