Y Combinator Opens Applications For New Class, As Total Funding For Alums Reaches $1.5B, Or $3.18M Each

Y Combinator founder Paul Graham tweeted today that the accelerator’s 464 startup graduates (prior to its current batch) have raised an average of $3.18 million in funding each, which means YC’s companies have landed a total of just under $1.5 billion.

In context, When Billy covered the incubator’s progress last summer, YC had launched 380 companies, which had raised just over $1 billion in total, with each company averaging about $2.7 million. So, over the course of the last six months (or one batch in YC terms), the accelerator’s startups have raised nearly $500 million and increased their average raise by nearly $500K.

Granted, as Billy pointed out at the time, those statistics are skewed by the top alums, like Dropbox and Airbnb, which have raised $257 million and $120 million, respectively, accounting for nearly 30 percent of total funding (at the time). Now, they account for about 25 percent.

Y Combinator, as many of you may know, launched in 2005 and selects two classes of startups per year into their three month program, during which the expanding team of mentors connects their teams with investors and invests in the companies. Initially, Yuri Milner and Ron Conway’s Start Fund invested $150K in each startup, however, in November, the accelerator created a new fund called YC VC and decreased its investment to $80K per startup in an effort to “become more startup friendly.”

YC VC also aimed to provide more time and involvement from VCs in the development of startups, and Graham has said previously that the partners have been looking to lower the overall size of its startup classes.

Graham explained at the time: “The reason we accepted fewer applications was that in summer 2012 we grew too fast … We had 66 companies in winter 2012, and that was fine, but for some reason more things than usual broke when we jumped from 66 to 84.”

This comes on the heels of YC beginning to accept applications for its Summer 2013 batch, which will begin in April, with applications due by March 29. So, startups can expect that, while the total number of applications for YC has continued to grow as the incubator grows in renown, the next class size won’t continue the current trend. Instead, Graham said that there may be less than 50 companies in the mix this time around.

Y Combinator is a venture fund which focuses on seed investments to startup companies. It offers financing as well as business consulting along with other opportunities to 2-4 person companies looking to take an idea to a product. Y Combinator looks for companies with “good” ideas over companies with experience and a business model. The company made its first investments in Summer 2005. Y Combinator selects companies to finance and consult with twice a year. They are located in…

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Y Combinator, 280 North, Skepsu, Evolving

Paul Graham is a partner at Y Combinator. He is also the author of On Lisp (1993), ANSI Common Lisp (1995), and Hackers & Painters (2004). In 1995, he and Robert Morris started Viaweb, the first ASP, which in 1998 became Yahoo! Store. In 2002 he discovered a simple spam filtering algorithm that inspired the current generation of filters. Graham has a B.A. from Cornell. He earned an M.S. and a Ph.D. in Applied Sciences (specializing in computer…

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Y Combinator Opens Applications For New Class, As Total Funding For Alums Reaches $1.5B, Or $3.18M Each

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