Y Combinator sees maximum applications from India after US

Silicon Valley-based accelerator Y Combinator has been witnessing a surge in applications from Indian startups for its upcoming batches. In its two batches this year, the accelerator has on-boarded 18 startups in total. While it had 11 Indian startups in its 2017 winter batch, 7 startups made entry to its summer programme.

According to the Y Combinator representative, India has seen maximum applications after the US. Recently, it also had announced that three of its partners, Gustaf Alströmer, Adora Cheung, and Anu Hariharan, will be visiting India this October. They will host talks and office hours and talks in Bangalore, Mumbai, and Delhi.

“In the last two years, India is the country that has sent YC the most applications (after the US). I believe that will continue to be true for this coming batch (winter 2018), and I hope we'll see more applications from India after our coming visit," told Kat Manalac, a partner at Y Combinator to ET.

Y Combinator hosts its “demo day” twice a year (in March and August). Selected startups move to Silicon Valley for three months and present their companies to a room full of renowned investors and press.

The accelerator invests $120K in startups for a 7% equity stake in the selected startups. Since its inception in 2005, Y Combinator had invested in over 1,430 startups. Importantly, 10 startups from the acceleration programme are currently valued more than $1 billion.

Since Y Combinator funds a large number of startups each year, it has a huge alumni network that helps newbie founders with mentoring, connection and capital.

In 2016, the accelerator had selected three startups including co-working space Innov8, mobile first commerce platform Meesho and self-drive car rental platform JustRide. ClearTax, Kisan Network, RazorPay, ServX, WheelStreet, and HackerRank are some of the others Indian startups that have been backed by Y Combinator.

To know more about Y Combinator's India visit click here.