[drp4929]

YC's goal is to help startups take first baby steps and raise money on a larger scale.

So most important stat is what % of companies do that. Based on your data it seems (76 + XYZ) out of 716 where XYZ is companies out of 121 exits who raised more money prior to exit.

It'd be interesting to know based on cohort (batch) analysis if YC is getting better in achieving its goal or not.

It'd also be interesting to know where YC stands on this compared to other comparable accelerators/incubators.

[akbar501]

> YC's goal is to help startups take first baby steps and raise money on a larger scale.

I thought YC companies have moved up in maturity over the years. More specifically, I thought current YC batches have more companies that have built product, found early product/market fit and are now ready to grow.

While phrased as a statement, the above is more of a question, since I don't know the answer.

That said, "and raise money on a larger scale" is still probably spot on and hasn't change much over the years.

[dmor]

This isn't quite right, those 76 are the ones that have not yet exited. Many of the exited companies also raised money and were not included in that particular stat.

I did some cohort analysis comparing YC, 500, and Techstars over a year ago. Probably time for another one: http://mattermark.com/startup-index-y-combinator-companies-h...

[amirmc]

> "YC's goal is to help startups ... raise money on a larger scale."

I don't think this is YC's goal. I recall comments from pg to the effect that if all the companies raised money on demo day, then maybe YC wasn't selecting properly (for the risky, out-there, stuff).

[drp4929]

Quote from the about page (http://www.ycombinator.com/about/) ...

"At Y Combinator, our goal is to get you through the first phase. This usually means: get you to the point where you’ve built something impressive enough to raise money on a larger scale. Then we can introduce you to later stage investors—or occasionally even acquirers."

[amirmc]

I stand corrected, thank you.

What I was trying to get at above was that if "% of companies funded" post demo-day is a metric YC wants to maximise, then it would be trivial for them to get to near 100% by only selecting the obviously investable propositions 3 months earlier. If they did this, they'd simply be following whatever fad that VCs happen to be chasing and might miss outliers (even PG tried to convince the Airbnb founders to try something else).