YCombinator logo

YCombinator

Accelerator·San Francisco ·~$2B across three funds (2024); invests $500K per company at standard terms

Founded in 2005 by Paul Graham, Jessica Livingston, Trevor Blackwell, and Robert Tappan Morris, Y Combinator is the world's most prolific startup accelerator and early stage investor. YC runs four annual batches of 250 to 300 startups, investing $500,000 per company for 7% equity plus an uncapped MFN safe. It has funded over 5,000 companies with a combined valuation exceeding $600 billion, producing 82 unicorns and 17 IPOs. Notable alumni include Airbnb, Stripe, Dropbox, DoorDash, Coinbase, Reddit, and Instacart. Led by president Garry Tan, 6% of YC companies reach unicorn status, with a quarter of those becoming decacorns.

Focus Areas

Generalist (AI/Agentic AIFintechSaaSDeveloper ToolsHealthcareB2BConsumer)

Portfolio

2 companies in our directory

PowerMatrix logo

PowerMatrix

Semiconductors·Pre-Seed

PowerMatrix was founded in 2024 by Borong Hu, who brings over a decade of power electronics expertise including leading power converter development for GE's largest wind turbine and managing power supply innovation at Bitmain. Hu holds a PhD in power electronics from the University of Warwick and completed postdoctoral research at Cambridge, publishing 60 academic papers with 650 citations and winning the IEEE ECCE William Portnoy Award. The company develops advanced power conversion systems for AI and data centres, delivering 80% smaller form factors and 50% energy loss reduction compared to conventional systems. PowerMatrix's innovations span semiconductors, circuits, materials, and packaging to address multi-stage power conversion efficiency challenges.

Seabound logo

Seabound

Climate Tech·Seed

Seabound was founded in late 2021 by Alisha Fredriksson and Roujia Wen, who met while studying at Minerva University. Fredriksson, a Swedish-Canadian climate entrepreneur, previously built Liquid Wind, a maritime e-fuel startup. Wen, a Chinese engineer with expertise in mathematics and theoretical physics from Cambridge, leads technology and systems development. The company developed a compact, retrofittable system that captures CO2 from ship exhaust and converts it into solid carbonate pellets for offloading at ports. Seabound completed its first full-scale maritime carbon capture units in February 2026 and has won the UK Government's Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition twice. The company secured a €1.5M European Space Agency award and has raised $6.8M in seed funding from YCombinator, Lowercarbon Capital, EMLES Venture Partners, and strategic investors Eastern Pacific Shipping and Lomar.