Y Combinator is a famed name among startups across the globe and was one of two accelerators that a survey of 20 VCs said was worth a founder’s time.
With just two cohorts a year, places on the accelerator are in high demand — for the winter 2024 batch (W24) YC says the acceptance rate was less than 1%, which is even more exclusive than Harvard University’s 4% and Stanford's 3.9%.
The group that made YC’s latest batch, W24, are currently gearing up for Demo Day, which is running today and tomorrow. This winter installation of the accelerator took place from January through to March this year.
Sifted confirmed with YC that 14 out of the 257 companies taking part in the latest batch are based in Europe, making up just over 5% of the total cohort. Of 592 participating founders, these Europe-HQd startups contribute 31, and across the programme there are around 100 European founders in total, including those at startups that aren't listed as based in Europe. At around 16% of the total founder cohort, that's down as a percentage from the last programme in 2023, where 21% of the group was European.
So far, 13 European startups have publicly announced their participation, according to the YC website. Here’s what they’re working on.
SaaS
Onedoc: This Swiss startup is developing an API platform which allows developers to build and edit complex PDF documents and create document workflows.
Malibou: The Paris-based company offers payroll and HR software for French small and medium businesses in one app.
Stitch Technologies: Founded by two ex-Palantir employees, London-based Stitch Technologies offers a platform for developers to manage their on-premises deployments — that is, stored on-site vs an off-site, public cloud — on their own hardware, while accessing the benefits that come with hosting it on a cloud database.
Quary: London-based Quary is developing an in-browser engineering platform for analytics.
AI
Model ML: Based in London, Model ML provides an AI tool for private equity firms and investment banks to manage tasks like due diligence and research.
Bilanc: A London-based AI platform, Bilanc helps companies automate the tracking of costs and profit at a customer level by compiling data from different teams and flagging anomalies early.
Metofico: This London-based startup offers a no-code data analysis platform to help life science companies analyse complex datasets and extract necessary information without needing programming skills.
Kiosk: HQd in Paris, Kiosk uses AI to help companies offer personalised chat marketing over WhatsApp.
Topo: Paris-based Topo offers B2B sales teams an AI sales agent that can be trained on their knowledge and data to source appropriate leads.
Pretzel AI: Founded in Berlin by two ex-Stripe employees, Pretzel AI is an open source and AI-native alternative to Jupyter Notebooks, which is a platform used by data scientists to develop software.
Leya: Stockholm-based Leya is an AI assistant for lawyers, which can automate workflows and answer complex legal questions.
Construction
Konstructly: Based in London, Konstructly offers an operating system that connects back office to production in the construction industry, allowing general contractors to directly tie the work being carried out to payments, to prevent overspending.
CoCrafter: Munich-based CoCrafter provides a platform for construction contractors to find both local and foreign subcontractors.
