SA国际传媒

Every cohort of startups 鈥済raduates鈥� to great fanfare when the accelerator holds its closely watched demo days. But what happens next?

Using SA国际传媒 data, we set out to track the funding trajectories of these seed- and pre-seed companies, starting with the very AI-centric , which wrapped up its demo day in early April. We grouped companies by industry and recorded who has announced funding.聽 We also looked at which investors are most active in backing these startups.

Although not all of the latest YC companies that raised seed funding have publicly announced it yet, a few have. Those with disclosed investments include a number bringing AI-enabled tools to sectors like legal tech, recruiting, code development and medical recordkeeping. They鈥檝e attracted funding from active seed investors like and 1, as well as prominent venture capital firms like , and .

An AI-centric batch

Half of this recently launched batch is , said , CEO of Y Combinator, in a post announcing its second post-COVID cohort that gathered in person in the Dogpatch neighborhood of San Francisco.

Tan took the helm over a year ago and moved YC up to the city. (He left his firm , an early-stage firm he co-founded in 2012 with co-founder .)

Being in-person and in the city has apparently created a stronger community.

鈥淗undreds of founders are meeting daily for office hours and events, bumping into legendary people, and surrounding themselves with people who will go deep on subjects and celebrate hard work,鈥� said , director of communication, via email. 鈥淭here is no other place in the world with the same density of great startup founders per square mile as the area around the YC office 鈥� and this is fostering innovation and growth.鈥�

San Francisco is experiencing a resurgence due to AI, which is borne out by SA国际传媒 data.

According to聽 , YC group partner, these companies skew younger 鈥� are college students or grads. Two years ago they were around 10%. 鈥淏ecause of AI, it’s the best time in a decade for college students to start startups,鈥� he said.

Enterprise companies still dominate, with more than two-thirds of the companies in enterprise SaaS. Around 11% are consumer oriented 鈥� with AI as the driver for offerings.

After the peak of 2021, the size of YC batches have come down. But YC still launches the largest number of companies in a single cohort 鈥� 260 companies in the winter batch.

Seed funding

Interacting in person benefits founders and their rate of progress, said , founder of seed investor Pioneer Fund, an active investor in YC companies, via email.

Pioneer has a network of portfolio companies and venture partners that add up to 1,500 YC alumni with relationships to founders either as a friend, former colleague or customer, according to Gray.聽 This allows for front loading due diligence.

On the common misconception that YC companies raise funding in advance of demo day, Gray said 鈥渨hile it does happen, it’s not the norm.鈥� He added that 鈥渕any founders focus on traction until demo day and are selective about which investors they allocate to before then.鈥�

YC hosts an investor evening as well as sharing pitches online. 鈥淭he in-person element does drive some urgency, which we believe is a benefit to both founders and investors,鈥� said Gray. 鈥淢inimizing the distraction of fundraising for founders is in everyone’s best interest.鈥�

The median raise, according to YC, is around $1.3 million post-demo day.

Based on an analysis of SA国际传媒 data, over all time , Khosla Ventures and are the most active multistage investors in YC companies by deal count. On the seed fund side, , SV Angel, Pioneer Fund, , and Garry Tan鈥檚 previous fund Initialized Capital are most active.

Of the winter 2024 cohort, meanwhile, funded companies include:

• Stockholm-based , an AI assistant for lawyers using proprietary data alongside cited legal sources. The company raised a $10.5 million seed led by Benchmark with partner joining the board. Belgium-based and SV Angel participated. Leya is working with 70+ European legal firms and has plans to expand to the U.S.
• San Francisco-based , built an API that uses large language models to answer questions about a company’s code base. It raised a seed funding of $4.1 million led by Initialized Capital.
• San Francisco-based , built by a team from , is creating a foundation model for chemists which can predict outcomes without having to run costly trials. The company raised a $4 million seed round led by Khosla Ventures with participation from , and among others.
• San Francisco-based , built by a team from Croatia, raised $4 million to help build apps with聽 natural-language interactions. The tool is open-sourced and said to be used by 30,000 developers. Investors include , 500 Emerging Europe, , and .
• Spacecraft software company , based in San Francisco, raised a $3.5 million seed funding led by Initialized Capital.
• Paris-based helps small businesses manage payroll and compliance. It raised a $3.1 million seed led by European venture firm .
• San Francisco-based , an AI data platform for healthcare records, raised a seed funding of $3 million led by General Catalyst.
• San Francisco-based , an AI interviewer to screen job candidates, raised $2.8 million led by with participation from and Pioneer fund.
• , a Seattle-based logistics aggregator of spot freight, raised a $2 million seed round from and YC. The founders were engineers at digital freight company which closed last fall.

Related SA国际传媒 Pro lists and searches

Pro subscribers can export these lists to track progress over time within their SA国际传媒 Pro accounts.

• tracked here.

Illustration: