Sunday, July 20, 2014

Milestone: The Value Of Y Combinator's Portfolio [Companies] Exceeds $30 Billion

From FastCompany:

Three YC alums in the billion-dollar-valuation club: Dropbox ($10 billion), Airbnb ($10 billion), and Stripe ($1.75 billion)
Y Combinator isn't known for doling the most amount of money to startups, but it's one of the most coveted accelerators due to its network and the success of its alums. On Wednesday, it released some fresh numbers to illustrate that success.
Including more than 400 active companies--Dropbox, Airbnb, Reddit, Stripe, Twitch, Homejoy and more--the market capitalization of Y Combinator startups exceeds $30 billion, according to the accelerator's president, Sam Altman.

Of course, much of that figure is inflated by Dropbox and Airbnb, each sporting a $10 billion valuation. The only other YC startup in the billion-dollar-valuation club is payments company Stripe. Its valuation jumped to $1.75 billion after raising its latest round in January. Overall, Y Combinator touts more than 20 companies worth at least $100 million. To date, its portfolio companies have raised more than $3 billion since its founding in 2005.

Y Combinator, which accepts less than 3% of startups, has 85 companies in its current class. Of interest, Altman noted, is that two of the startups focus on nuclear energy.