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by jypepin 3947 days ago
how good or bad are those numbers? only 8/970 companies are worth > 1b and 40 are worth over 100M.

I assume YC is doing great for themselves, so I'm wondering, what is the rule of thumb to say an investment was successful? (for YC, knowing they invest cheap and early.)

Is it once a company reaches 10M? 1M? Where there is an exit?

It would be interesting to know how many companies YC says the investment was a success (either made money or will if no exit yet).
4 comments
onion2k 3947 days ago
how good or bad are those numbers? only 8/970 companies are worth > 1b and 40 are worth over 100M.

The billion dollar number is freaking incredible. There are 115 venture-backed private companies globally that have unicorn valuations[1]. For 8 of them to have been through the same accelerator is amazing.

[1] http://graphics.wsj.com/billion-dollar-club/

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jazzyk 3947 days ago
>8/970 companies are worth > 1b and 40 are worth over 100M.

Sorry to be negative, but worth according to whom?

If none of these companies are public, the valuation comes from a very narrow group of private investors. In what seems to be a bubble (and an echo chamber) in S.V., these valuations may be vastly overstated.

That said, kudos to YC for being transparent.

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jazzyk 3947 days ago
To all the down-voters:

Do you not think that solid data such as revenue, revenue growth and profit/loss (or at least burn rate) would be a much better measure of success? Some non-public companies (like Uber) publish some of these numbers.

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SuperKlaus 3947 days ago
Excellent point, most of the companies couldn't exit at whatever valuation they raised money last.
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smt88 3947 days ago
Valuations are currently so high and IPOs are so difficult that you shouldn't pay much attention to the valuation stats.

If all of those companies wanted to exit at the price of their most recent raise, they wouldn't be able to. That means that at least some of the valuations are unrealistic.

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gsharma 3947 days ago
These numbers are great from aggregation/press perspective, but they are not enough to tell if YC is doing good or bad. For instance, last 3 YC batches had ~250 (or maybe 300) companies funded. That is almost 1/3 of the total companies funded by YC. It will take another couple of years to determine what the success rate for these companies is.
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