With over 200 companies, the Winter 2019 class is by far YC’s largest yet.
YC’s president CEO Sam Altman was announced to step down and other YC partners would step up to take on his day-to-day responsibilities. Besides, the firm is considering to move its HQ to San Francisco.
Founded in 2005, YC has hatched lots of unicorns, including Airbnb (a travel rental platform which valued at more than $ 30 billion), Dropbox (a online file synchronization tool with more than $ 10 billion valuation) and Stripe（a online payment processing service provider which is valued at more nearly billions of dollars).The companies have a combined valuation of over $80B.
From heads-up displays for soldiers to electric-vehicle chargers, the latest crop of Y Combinator companies showcased the breadth of entrepreneurial innovation. There are more than 200 companies in Winter 2019 Demo Day. The startups in enterprise field account for nearly 29%, while the consumer field account 23%.
Since 2005，Y Combinator have funded over 1900 startups. The sector of these companies covers 26 areas, including augmented reality, B2B, biomedical, community, consumer, developer tools, drones, educations, enterprise, fintech, hardware, healthcare, marketplace and media. In the last 2 years, YC have introduced new categories to adjust itself to the new technology environments，including AI，Biotech，Diversity, Drones, Energy, Government, Robotics, Science, Security, Transportation and Virtual Reality.
Companies in B2B and Consumer fields are still had the highest proportion in YC’s portfolio blanket, accounting for more than 50% of total.
Compared with it in early 2018, B2B companies experienced a steady increase. The numbers of AI startups are increasing rapidly.
YC’s AI step is hopefully have a bigger step in the foreseeable future.
YC launched its first “vertical”track for AI startups in 2017. In 2018, YC Bio is established to fund early-stage Life Science companies that are still in the lab phase. Famous Chinese AI expert Qi Lu is responsible for YC China and selected its mentors, including executives and an academic who will coach young entrepreneurs in its winter program. The newly formed mentor team—known as Part-time Partners—consists of Huang Zheng, CEO of social e-commerce giant Pinduoduo, CEO of parental knowledge-sharing platform Babytree Group and former Yahoo and Google executive Allen Wang, as well as Professor Eric Xing from Carnegie Mellon University.
