Y Combinator To Host 26 Indian Startups In Its Winter Batch

Silicon valley-based accelerator Y Combinator has finally announced that 26 Indian startups have been shortlisted for its upcoming winter batch 2020. The winter batch has almost doubled the entries from India, compared to its summer batch that had 14 Indian startups.

When Inc42 reached out to Y Combinator seeking more details about the startups, a spokesperson said, “Now that our W20 batch kicked off, we have shared that there are 26 Indian startups in this batch. Unfortunately, I can’t reveal any company names at this point, as it is up to the founders when they want to make the news public.”

According to ET report of December 2019, Y Combinator might have doubled entries of Indian startups due to its exit from the Chinese market. The report suggested that with China out of the picture, India is the biggest market for Y Combinator.

The report also noted that the Chinese startups will still be allowed to apply for the accelerator programme, however, Y Combinator will not hold any separate programme for China. With this increase in entries, India will now make up for almost 15% of Y Combinators’ batch.

Y Combinator, launched in 2005, is a three-month-long intensive accelerator programme for seed-stage startups. The accelerator programme is followed by a demo day that provides seed funding to startups. The firm has divided its programme into two batches — winter and summer.

Besides funding, Y Combinator also mentors the startups to deal with investors and acquirers. For this, the startups are asked to move to Silicon Valley in the US, where the accelerator takes care of all the living expenses at its campus.

Since its launch, Y Combinator has accelerated the launch of over 2,000 seed-stage startups. The combined value of Y Combinator’s portfolio is $155 Bn.

Y Combinator’s Indian portfolio includes payments gateway Razorpay, fintech firm ClearTax and social commerce player Meesho, which were part of its earlier 2015 and 2016 batches. Y Combinator aims to help the startups through the tough initial phase so that they can build products or services to raise money on a larger scale.

Y Combinator’s portfolio also includes 20 unicorns — lodging marketplace Airbnb, Online payment processing startup Stripe, file hosting service startup Dropbox, online food delivery platform DoorDash, self-driving car maker Cruise and digital currency exchange Coinbase, among others. Y Combinator, on its website, claims that more than 102 startups in its portfolio are valued above $150 Mn.

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