Investing in YC W17 startups to make city life better
YC’s Winter 2017 batch increased the number of teams working on core city problems like transportation, housing, food and connectivity. Out of 106 companies, YCW17 had 16 teams focused on urbantech (tech solutions that could make city life better while reducing our impact on the environment).
We caught up with a few of these teams over the last few days at YC Demo Day, so rather than do a few startup intros, we thought we’d share what we learned.
Mobility
It is critical that we continue to move towards sustainable transportation. Air quality and quality of life are both immensely impacted by how we get to and around cities. Sustainable transportation includes the electrification of engines, improving vehicle performance, increasing adoption of public transportation and reducing traffic caused by deliveries.
Wright Electric is creating the Boeing 737 for electric airplanes. 30% of flights are short hauls between nearby cities and airline flight often accounts for most of our individual carbon footprint. This type of regional flying is seeing steady growth. At the same time, all forms of transport are seeing a move to electrification. But the performance versus cost requirements for flight, make this an especially interesting challenge. The team has shared a lot of detail on their blog, including this pitch to airlines.
Token Transit enables you to buy public transit tickets from your phone. The friction around having exact change stifles the utilization of public bus transportation in most mid sized cities. In fact, Uber and Lyft’s removal of an explicit payment step, is often cited as a point of convenience. At the same time, moving to e-ticketing reduces costs for the transit agencies, since they can stop managing vending machines. There are thousands of mid sized cities and millions of daily riders that might opt for an upgraded experience. This might be just the thing to get more people to ditch their cars.
Fiix has created the Uber for Auto Repair (specifically for North America). Mechanical failures cause 12% to 13% of all auto accidents. The friction that delays car maintenance tend to relate to either cost or time — costs associated with renting real estate for repair shops and time to get to these locations. So Fiix send mechanics to you, since a lot of the work can be done on site in your driveway or in a work parking facility. Fiix is focusing on a few cities at a time and building economies of scale to match mechanics with discounted parts and customers, saving money and adding value on all sides.
A few more mobility related startups from YC W17:
Lvl5 is replacing LIDAR with maps for autonomous vehicles.
Shipamax is a marketplace for bulk shipping.
Volans-i is making B2B deliveries using drones, beginning in Taiwan.
Built Environment
The buildings that make up where we live, work and play are a core part city life. Sustainable built environment means building more efficiently and at the right pace to serve the growing urban population with affordable options. Real estate is not a small market, and between underutilized/distressed property and increasing demand for affordable supply, YC companies continue to chip away at the opportunity.
Boxouse is building mass produced houses from shipping containers. This isn’t novel, but their business model is. They’re focused on people who want to have more space to rent out (say using their yard) and renters who are more focused on location and utility versus exterior aesthetics, which are typically more important to owners. The Bay Area is plagued by restrictive development rules that aren’t keeping up with the growing demand, driving prices to an unaffordable rate for middle and low income residents. Since Boxouse’s initial focus is on rental income generation, it’s likely to see a different adoption path vs current approaches to container/prefab.
Tolemi has created software that helps cities find distressed properties. The condition of neighboring properties has wide reaching implications from fire safety and crime, to property values and quality of life. Distressed properties represent unlocked economic value as well as opportunities to address other pressing needs in communities, including gardens, community solar, urban farms, and well-maintained affordable housing. Tolemi is helping to find and quantify these opportunities.
A few more built environment related startups from YC W17:
Fibo provides mobile work tracking for construction teams.
Bulletin is like WeWork for Retail Space
REZI has developed a platform that’s like OpenDoor for leases
We flagged more teams with solutions in sectors like Civic & Public Safety, Food, and Connectivity.
LitHit Smart shooting targets that light up on impact. This may prove to be a great training tool for police and private security. LitHit’s gamified feedback loop can track and improve performance in shoot and no-shoot scenarios, or can be used to find and advance top talent. It brings some of the aspects of first person shooter games, to real life training. Like gaming environments, it can easily become a toy, but it might also prove to be an effective simulation to improve training.
KidPass is the ClassPass for kids activities.
Movebutter is the Blue Apron for Groceries.
Wifi.com.ng is the Comcast of Africa.
Wifi Dabba is providing Wifi for India.
Keep an eye out for which teams we end up investing in and working with by applying to join the Urban Us Network or follow us on AngelList.
