The world’s most prestigious startup school launched 48 companies today at part 2 of its Summer 2016 Demo Day. Nanoparticle analytics and delivery robots were amongst the products revealed in the B2B, biotech, enterprise, edtech, fintech, and hardware verticals. You can check out our write-ups of all 44 startups that launched yesterday, and TechCrunch’s picks for the top 7 from the batch.
YC International
Trying to distill trends from the hodgepodge of startups at Demo day can be futile, because the real winners are the ones ahead of the trends. For example, TechCrunch thought Airware’s drone operating system was a little too early in 2013. It turned out to be smartly ahead of the curve. Now you see lots of drone startups in YC, but many are chasing Airware which has gone on to raise $70 million.
Justin Kan, Twitch co-founder and YC partner
Y Combinator president Sam Altman explains “The best company at any given Demo Day is not the one that fits the theme of that Demo Day. it’s the one that fits the theme of 2019.” Altman cites the Alan Kay quote that “the best way to predict the future is to invent it”, adding “I think short of that, the future is basically unknowable. What I like about YC is the companies get to invent the future. They don’t have to guess.”
One important development is that 30% of this batch’s companies were founded outside the US, a bigger portion than in the past.
YC partner Justin Kan credits that to the program being around long enough that it’s funded successful companies from tons of countries. He says founders used to ask “Would YC even fund a company from Indonesia or Thailand?” but now there are role models they can look to.
“The startup mindset has seeped out of the Silicon Valley” Altman tells us. “One of the things that will surprise people is how much of a world-wide phenomenon startups will become.” Altman notes that while tech has led to four of the five most valuable companies in the world being based on the west coast of the US, he doesn’t expect that to persist, so YC has to fund international startups.
And now, here are all 48 companies that launched at YC Summer 2016 Demo Day 2:
ApolloShield – A system to safely land threatening drones
Drones present a serious threat to security. Every year, there are thousands of security incidents with drones that can include contraband delivery and near collisions with aircrafts. ApolloShield is selling a device that can take control of unwanted drones, disconnect operators, and safely land the crafts. To date, the hardware can defend against about half the drones on the market. The company said that law enforcement clients need an average of five devices that cost $30,000 per device per year.
Read more about ApolloShield on TechCrunch.
Ohmygreen – B2B wellness solutions
Who knew there’s already a billion dollar-plus market for office snacks? That’s what Ohmygreen — a provider of healthy office snacks — is going after. The company already serves larger companies like Lyft and Amazon, and boasts a 55 percent gross margin. The company has an $800,000 monthly recurring revenue, too. Ohmygreen does 700 deliveries every month, but at its core, it’s a logistics company, CEO Michael Heinrich said. That makes plenty sense — it allows Ohmygreen to optimize its delivery network and supply chains for its specific kinds of snacks. “This allows us to get those gross margins, 55 percent is 3-5X that of industry leaders,” he said. “That’s the same as Twilio.”
Emote – Student behavioral analysis
Student outcomes are as much a product of learning as they are a product of wellness. Emote wants to put powerful behavioral information in the hands of teachers before students even walk into the classroom. The company recognizes that 300,000 students are pushed out of class every single day and wants to do something about it by helping teachers recognize and plan for student interactions so that disruptions don’t occur. Emote will be in 33 schools by the end of September and another 135 by January. This represents 1.3 million in potential revenue and the company cites sales cycles of just three weeks.
Flutterwave – Payment processing in Africa
Payments processing is stratified across Africa. The continent is host to over 276 wallets, 500 banks, and 7 card networks. Flutterwave is producing an API for payment processing that can organize this market and create efficiencies. The company has already processed $20 million in payments over the last three months and stands to gain a lot from a 0.3 percent processing fee. In the last month, Flutterwave doubled its payment volume in an African market of over $360 billion yearly mobile payments. Services are available in Nigeria and Ghana and will be expanding to nine more countries by the end of the year.
Instrumentl – Making scientific grants easy
For scientists, applying to grants is a drag. It just doesn’t make sense for some of the most educated people on the planet to spend their time filling out forms and searching for funding sources. Instrumentl offers universities and research institutions access to a database of federal, state, and corporate money — for a monthly fee of $35 per seat. But Instrumentl isn’t just a database, it leverages machine learning algorithms to identify and push relevant grants towards applicable research. Scientists simply use the platform to build a project description and the platform takes care of the rest. Harvard, Yale, and Texas A&M are already using the platform and the company is generating 200,000 in annual recurring revenue.
People.ai – Sales team analytics
Oleg Rogynskyy and his team at People.ai want to help companies understand what sales teams are doing on a daily basis. People.ai integrates with calendars, phones, and emails and logs sales activity that leads to closing deals. The idea is that sales teams can track best practices from top performers and close more deals. Over 100 companies have partnered with people.ai over the last four months at a price of $50 per seat per month.
Read more about People.ai on TechCrunch.
Revlo – Audience management for gamers that live stream
Live streaming video gaming sessions may seem like a dream job, but it can be a lot of work to engage with interested viewers. Revlo is an audience management platform for streamers. Early users have seen a 40 percent increase in viewership time and a 2X increase in new viewer retention. Today there are 16,000 active streamers on the platform, paying $10 per month, to use its chatbots, leaderboards, and virtual currency to increase engagement.
Quero Education – Filling open seats at Brazilian colleges
Quero Education is an ed-tech startup out of Brazil that is promising to help solve under-enrollment issues at Brazilian universities. Contrary to what most of us would think, coming from schools challenged daily by a lack of professors and dormitories, enrollment at Brazilian schools would need to double to just match the number of available seats. The company’s platform offers information across colleges in additions to discounts at over a third of schools in Brazil. Quero takes a 12 percent cut of tuition which averages $3,000 per year in the country and has generated $7 million in revenue at a 5X yearly growth rate.
Read more about Quero Education on TechCrunch.
Fellow – An API for working capital
Many companies struggle to find working capital when it is most needed — the end of the month when employees and contracts need to be paid. Fellow is an API for invoice financing that removes friction for companies. The API auto-underwrites and finances invoices. In three weeks, four companies have started using Fellow, financing approximately $120,000 in working capital. In the past, companies had to either have huge revenue streams, or deal with months of bureaucracy to get credit lines from banks.
HiOperator – Customer service as a service
HiOperator wants to help companies get access to customer service, no matter their size. The company scales phone, email and chat support services with easy integrations and a pay-as-you-go model that contrasts with other services that have large on-boarding fees. Ten companies are already using HiOperator, resulting in $11,000 in monthly recurring revenue. HiOperator’s services can integrate into key customer service platforms and centralize all information into a single platform.
Innov8 – Coworking spaces for India
Innov8 wants to bring coworking to India in a big way. They group has already built two centers in the country with 100 percent occupancy and a 200 person waitlist. The spaces utilize differentiating design to convince a growing number entrepreneurs in India to pay the monthly fee. Coworking is burgeoning in India because of it offers reliable infrastructure while at the same time reducing costs. Innov8 charges occupants $150 a month, which represents an average of about a 50 percent reduction of office costs.
Vidcode – Teaching CS with fun student projects
Online services like CodeAcademy have been growing for a few years, but Vidcode wants to target students directly in their schools by providing projects adapted for a younger audience. Vidcode partnered with Snapchat to let students build and implement filters. Students can also use Java to build Pokemon and memes from scratch. The company is currently working to expand a high-profile contract with New York City Schools. Since launching, Vidcode is growing at 40 percent monthly by charging districts and schools $50 per student using the platform.
Read more about Vidcode on TechCrunch.
Polymail – Office mail without plugins
Today, our email productivity is more dependent on plugins then the mail client itself. We use them for read receipts, for scheduling, and for contact management. Polymail wants to integrate all of these features into a…
