Silicon Valley-based startup incubator Y Combinator (YC) announced today that is has raised $8.25 million with which it plans to provide funding to a larger group of startups this summer. Leading the funding was Sequoia Capital along with several angel investors, including Ron Conway, Paul Buchheit, Aydin Senkut, XG Ventures, and Geoff Ralston – many of same investors which provided YC with $2 million in March of last year.
“The new fund is more than four times larger than the preceding one, partly because it’s meant to last for several years, and partly because we’re going to use it to increase the number of startups we fund,” wrote Y Combinator founder Paul Graham today on the program’s blog. “It looks like we will have at least 35 in the summer 2010 funding cycle.”
“We’re going to use it to increase the number of startups we fund. It looks like we will have at least 35 in the summer 2010 funding cycle.”
– Paul Graham
35 startups would be nearly a 30% increase in participants from the winter session from earlier this year – a good sign that these invaluable startup incubators are continuing to expand and provide further opportunities to a growing number of early-stage companies. In fact, it’s not too late to get in on the game for this summer with YC; the incubator is accepting late applications to assure the best companies are accepted, so those 35 startups and 30% figures could still grow.
The more prominent startup incubators have had an attractive track record to venture capitalists, and thus are prime targets for increased amounts of funding. Y Combinator has produced several well known successful startups, such as Bump, DailyBooth, Drop Box, Justin.TV, Loopt and Posterous. TechStars, with programs in Seattle, Boulder and Boston, is responsible for helping startups like Brightkite, Intense Debate, DailyBurn, Occipital and Everlater get off the ground.
Young entrepreneurs out there should be excited that programs like Y Combinator and TechStars are continuing to grow because that means the chances of being accepted into one of these highly coveted programs are that much better.
