YC Releases New Request For Startups List

Also Foundry Group is winding down and Slack is adding AI.

Author

Adam Hardej
February 15, 2024

Daily(ish) news and live events for venture nerds.

The YC “request for startup” list hasn’t been updated since 2018 and it’s exciting to see them codify some of the new feelings in the market around what ambitious builders could/should aim for. Also, hardware officially has a seat at the cool kids table. Meanwhile, Foundry Group - the 18 year old/$3B AUM fund - is winding down and Slack is adding AI.

Our “Personal Finance Apps Post-Mint” Panel is live right now (3pm EST) on Sandhill! Click here to tune in.

YC's latest Request for Startups

“The RFS is a YC tradition — you can find examples going back as far as 2009. Each one offers up ideas we’d want to see made real, in spaces that we believe will be important in the coming decades. The world is full of founders with expertise that could be tapped into something new and great; our hope is that this list inspires some of those people to do so — or if they’re already building, to apply to YC.”

Foundry Group is shutting down and won’t raise another fund

“The move raises questions for its portfolio companies. Foundry says it will continue to invest out of its newest fund, but for founders, accepting capital from a firm that is winding down is a risk and could make securing follow-on funding that much harder.”

Slack taps AI to summarize your long-winded co-workers

“Slack is pitching the AI features as a great way for new workers to get up to speed and for overwhelmed employees to keep tabs on myriad threads and channels without having to read each message.”

Hot Links

Upcoming Live Events

Up Next: Personal Finance Apps Post-Mint

Join us live TODAY!! - Thursday, February 15th - at 3pm EST to learn more about the role of personal finance apps in a post-mint world.

For context: Mint was one of the largest personal finance apps in the world and it is being sunset by Intuit, who bought mint for $170M in 2020.

On Deck: Anduril and Defense Tech

Join us live on Thursday, February 22nd to learn more about Anduril and the Defense Tech sector. We're excited to be joined by:

Scott Sanders - Chief Growth Officer @ RRAI

RRAI is an industry-leading vehicle autonomy company providing autonomous driving solutions for defense and commercial applications. Founded in 2002, the Company has leveraged twenty years of experience customizing autonomous solutions to apply best practices across verticals and become a trusted technology partner to the public and private sectors. From people to platforms, at home or overseas, RRAI is driven to make the way you move smarter, safer, and more efficient. To date, their vehicle-agnostic Autonomy Kit has been deployed on four continents in over 10 countries.

Ross Fubini - Managing Partner at XYZ Venture Capital

Operating under the belief that execution solves all problems, XYZ is a venture firm that invests in early-stage founders to help them go faster. XYZ aims to support entrepreneurs in building enduring companies in fintech, enterprise and tech-forgotten industries like insurance and the public sector. The firm primarily backs talented founders at the earliest stages of company building -- people who have discovered a key insight and have an unfair advantage from “doing the work” or based on their own lived experience.

More Details Soon: NYC’s Definitive Demo Day

Really excited to put this event together alongside our friends at Verci. Our goal is to make this a monthly window into the best of what the NYC startup scene has to offer. Great founders building exciting solutions with smart questions from active investors.

Sign up for updates right here right now.

YC S05 — the first batch

Letters From The Editor

Misc. (short for miscellaneous)

YC Ramblings

I found out what YC was in 2017 after graduating when I was trying to figure out how to fundraise for my first business. We applied to the W18 batch and got through to the second round. They were still doing the second round interviews in person back then so we got on flights out to SF.

In the interview - Gustaf told us it was cool, but that it wouldn’t scale. We didn’t get in. We kept working on the business anyways and quickly grew revenue from $150K to $500K. But, about 6 months post interview, I realized Gustaf was right and I sold my stake to my partner in order to go work on other things.

The thing I remember most about my YC interview experience is the distinct “wow, I’m a real founder now” feeling it gave me. Being in SF. Going to the YC office. Meeting people like Gustaf who had helped grow companies like Airbnb. The whole experience - even without being a part of the batch - made me feel like I was walking down the right path despite having zero visibility as to where it might lead.

I think this is the most valuable thing YC does for founders. Even more valuable than the money or the network. YC gives people - particularly young people - permission to be ambitious in this way. They take it seriously. They encourage it. They look to guide it.

The new YC Request For Startups list reminds me of this feeling. I can see a founder finding renewed energy from seeing their ideas on the list. I can see someone who’s not a founder yet being inspired by the opportunities it presents. Small boosts like that can make a big difference. A quick reminder that they’re not as crazy as they might feel and that it just might be a worthy pursuit after all.

Stripe Sentiment

How do we think Stripe will trade after the annual letter?

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Bullish. I think we'll see the price move up significantly. (13)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ Flat. I don't think they will present significant growth. (8)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ Flat. I think whatever they share is already priced in. (7)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ Bearish. I think the price will move down significantly. (10)

If we combine the “Flat” answers here we get our real winner. My personal opinion is that we’ll see the price move up significantly after the letter. The lack of information in private markets suppresses demand (often times purposefully) and my thought is that new insights of any kind on Stripe should generally bring more buyers to the table. In terms of actual numbers/growth, I’d also suspect them to have had a surprisingly good year given the amount of uncertainty there was heading into 2023.

We’ll see though and I’ll report back with some Notice.co data in April. Check Notice out here if you want to go deeper on your own.

Talk soon,
Adam

PS - Do you want to sponsor this newsletter or an upcoming live event? Reply to this email and/or shoot a note to [email protected] to learn more.