Ivana Djuretic, Co-founder and CSO, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://asherbio.com//">Asher Bio</a><br>Rachel Rea, Sr. Director, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.medtronic.com/us-en/index.html/">Medtronic
Cami Samuels, Partner, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.venrock.com//">Venrock
Tanay Tandon, Co-founder and CEO of <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/athelas/">Athelas
Sid Viswanathan, Co-founder and CEO, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://truepill.com//">TruePill
and more to be announced<br><br>When people think of Y Combinator, what often comes to mind first are the software companies that got their start with YC – companies like Airbnb, DoorDash and Stripe. But within the last 5 years, YC has funded over 500 healthcare and bio startups, 9 of which are now billion dollar companies. We’ve quietly become the largest seed stage funder of bio startups in the world. We're looking forward to sharing what we’ve learned from funding hundreds of founders and working alongside them as their companies have grown. <br><br>If you’re in the early stages of starting a bio startup or are considering starting one, we hope you join us. <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://ychealthandbiosummit2022.splashthat.com//">Sign up to attend here</a>.</p>","comment_id":"6320f7135142100001443588","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/09/biosummit.jpeg","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2022-09-13T14:33:07.000-07:00","updated_at":"2022-09-14T09:01:34.000-07:00","published_at":"2022-09-14T08:55:00.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"We’re excited to announce the first YC Health and Bio Summit that will take place in San Francisco on October 21, 2022. \nThe half day conference will feature bio and healthcare founders and investors who will tell their stories and share advice for entrepreneurs who are just getting started. ","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71072","name":"Surbhi Sarna","slug":"surbhi-sarna","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/09/1563221214332.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Surbhi is a group partner at Y Combinator. 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","reading_time":1,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"61fe29f1c7139e0001a71c04","uuid":"137bef50-c46e-42ab-9496-bd321c54e3fa","title":"Does co-founder matching work? It did for these YC companies.","slug":"does-co-founder-matching-work","html":"<p>We launched the co-founder matching platform earlier this year to help founders find their co-founders. When you sign up, you tell us about yourself and what you’re looking for, and we show you profiles that most closely match your ideal co-founder. If you message a candidate and they accept, we match the two of you.</p><p>Co-founder matching has also seen success with brand-new companies. Two pairs of co-founders met through the platform earlier this year, worked together on trial projects, became fully committed co-founders, applied to YC, and were accepted into the Summer 2021 batch!</p><p><strong><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.sequincard.com//">Sequin (YC S21) is one of these companies. Vrinda Gupta had left her job after launching credit cards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve at Visa to work on a product to help women build credit. She spent a year working as a solo founder, and, in that time, raised a pre-seed and built an MVP. She knew she needed a technical co-founder who was mission driven, had fintech expertise, and was in it for the long haul.</p><figure class=\"kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption\"><img src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://blog.ycombinator.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Sequin.jpeg/" class=\"kg-image\" alt loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption>Sequin (YC S21) co-founders, Vrinda Gupta and Mark Thomas.</figcaption></figure><p>That person was Mark Thomas. He had ten years of engineering experience at Paypal, cared deeply about gender equity, and spent six years as CTO of family-oriented startups. They had an instant connection and arranged to meet in person soon after. Vrinda recalls, “We met the day after we matched, and the day after, and then the day after that.”</p><p>Together, they went through YC’s batch this summer and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.forbes.com/sites/geristengel/2021/09/15/debit-card-startup-builds-credit-for-women/?sh=6283b60b3c67\%22>raised $5.7M</a>.</p><p><strong><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.kiwibiosciences.com//">Kiwi Biosciences</a></strong></strong> (YC S21) has a similar story. Anjie Liu started the company to solve her own pains with irritable bowel syndrome. She had a founding scientist to tackle R&D, but wanted a co-founder to help her build a consumer brand and commercialize the product.</p><figure class=\"kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption\"><img src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://blog.ycombinator.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/kiwi.jpeg/" class=\"kg-image\" alt loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption>Anjie Liu and David Hachuel, co-founders of Kiwi Biosciences (YC S21).</figcaption></figure><p>When Anjie saw David Hachuel’s profile on YC co-founder matching, she knew that he was “exactly what [she] was looking for.” David had previously sold a startup in the same space, and was immediately interested in her idea.</p><p>They took a very structured approach to co-founder matching. Both founders answered all 50 questions posed in <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://proof-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/firstround/50 Questions for Co-Founders.pdf/">First Round’s co-founder questionnaire</a>. They found deep alignment on “all the important things” (conflict resolution, vision for culture, etc.). When their month-long trial ended and it came time to say go or no-go, the decision was easy.</p><p>Anjie and David worked remotely for four months and finally met in person after getting into YC. They went through YC and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/14/kiwi-bio-aims-to-free-irritable-bowel-syndrome-sufferers-from-restrictive-diets//">raised $1.5M</a>.</p><p>We’re ecstatic about the companies who met through our co-founder matching and we’re excited to see the platform continue to grow and support more awesome founders in the future!</p><p>Looking for a co-founder? Check out the platform at <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://blog.ycombinator.com/does-co-founder-matching-work/www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching/">www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching.","comment_id":"61a505fbcf1ec1000121a57c","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2021/12/BlogTwitter-Image-Template--11-.png","featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2021-11-29T08:55:23.000-08:00","updated_at":"2024-10-23T02:26:59.000-07:00","published_at":"2021-11-24T08:55:00.000-08:00","custom_excerpt":"Read about how the founders of Seer, Sequin, and Kiwi Biosciences used YC’s co-founder matching platform to complete their founding team.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71081","name":"Catheryn Li","slug":"catheryn","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/10/catheryn.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Catheryn (Cat) is a Product Engineer at YC focused on Startup School. 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When you sign up, you tell us about yourself and what you’re looking for, and we show you profiles that most closely match your ideal co-founder. If you message a candidate and they accept, we match the two of you.","reading_time":2,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"6413474fc1abdc000107c9f8","uuid":"05f7267f-823b-4485-9995-dafe9d6031ef","title":"YC Meetup on Building Open Source Software Startups","slug":"yc-meetup-on-building-open-source-software-startups","html":"<p>We're hosting a small reception at our office in San Francisco, on <strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://apply.ycombinator.com/events/346/">April 11th at 5pm PT</a></strong>, for people who are interested in the growing trend of Open Source Software startups. We've funded over 75 OSS companies to date and we’re especially excited about them.</p><p>If you’re interested in maybe starting an open source company someday, this is a good opportunity to get to know some of the top founders in this area and hear the latest best practices.</p><p>We’ll host a panel with:<br>• <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.linkedin.com/in/solomonhykes//">Solomon Hykes</strong></a>, co-founder of <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/docker/">Docker and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/dagger/">Dagger
• <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.linkedin.com/in/debergalis//">Matt DeBergalis</strong></a>, co-founder of <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/apollo/">Apollo GraphQL</a> (valued over $1B)<br>• <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.linkedin.com/in/umurc//">Umur Cubukcu</strong></a>, co-founder of <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/citus-data/">Citus Data</a> (acquired by Microsoft) and now Visiting Group Partner at Y Combinator<br>• <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.linkedin.com/in/reshmakhilnani//">Reshma Khilnani</strong></a>, co-founder of <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/medplum/">MedPlum and former Visiting Group Partner at Y Combinator</p><p>and also a short talk from Daniel Gackle who runs <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://news.ycombinator.com//">Hacker News</a>.</p><p>After the panel, we’ll have a cocktail reception. We’ve invited many other founders of YC Open Source Software companies so you can get to know them 1-1. YC Group Partners will be around if you want to bounce around ideas about possible startups.</p><p>We have limited space and expect the event to be over-subscribed. 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YC and Ginkgo Bioworks announce new partnership for synthetic biology startups
by Jared Friedman9/16/2019
Ginkgo Bioworks was the first bio company YC funded, back in summer 2014, which makes us especially delighted to announce a new partnership between YC and Ginkgo.
Ginkgo Bioworks programs cells. They program them to produce flavors, fragrances, cannabinoids, food proteins, and more. To do that, they have built the world’s most advanced compiler and debugger of genetic code for the rapid engineering of new organisms.
Today, Ginkgo’s core business is programming cells for large companies like Bayer and Roche. But these are multi-million dollar deals that are out of the reach of startups. Ginkgo’s new deal will make it possible for startups to access the same platform.
Ginkgo Bioworks will offer to program cells for YC companies doing qualifying synthetic biology projects on a $0 down basis. Instead of charging, Ginkgo will get equity. Their equity ownership will be based on achieving technical milestones, so it’s essentially a risk free deal for the companies. Ginkgo will effectively be making a big in-kind R&D investment in these companies. Before engaging with YC companies, Ginkgo will need to vet the projects for technical feasibility and IP conflicts. But a broad range of projects will qualify, and I expect that the right companies can save years and millions of dollars by taking advantage of this deal.
YC has funded many synthetic biology companies, working on products from industrial chemicals to food ingredients to cosmetics to therapeutics. In the past, companies like this had to make major investments upfront in organism engineering before they could manufacture anything. With this deal from Ginkgo, the next generation of synthetic biology companies will have the option to start by leveraging Ginkgo rather than building lab infrastructure in-house.
Ginkgo providing startups access to their platform is a big step in the shift that we see towards the AWSification of biology. Ginkgo now joins YC companies like Culture Biosciences, Atomwise, and Excepgen that are making it possible for bio companies to use existing building blocks rather than doing everything from scratch. As this trend accelerates, it will become faster and cheaper for new bio companies to get started.
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Author
Jared Friedman
Jared is Managing Director, Software and Group Partner at YC. He was cofounder of Scribd, which was funded by Y Combinator in 2006 and grew to be one of the top 100 sites on the web.