With acceptance rate of less than 2% YC is one of the most competitive incubators.
IMAGE CREDITS: Y-COMBINATOR
BUSINESS
In 2024, out of 40,000+ applications, YC funded just 450 startups
Rakshit Keswani & Madhurima Chaterjee
12:16 PM PST • December 12, 2025
Two startups, one YC spot. Can you guess which one made it?
Oxygen is a fintech company, offering business banking focused on businesses. Currently, oxygen is on the verge of shutting down.
GoCardless, is a fintech company building a global bank payment network enabling direct payments for businesses.
Decoding Y Combinator
Why is YC backing multiple players
solving the same problem?
Many people believe that a startup must be radically novel to get funded by Y Combinator. But the truth might be far from this. Is originality dead in the startup industry? Let’s find out.
1
Behind every Doordash, there are many companies that fail
YC has funded billion dollar companies like Doordash, Stripe, and Airbnb. Yet their database (2005-24) reveals dozens of similar companies for each winner. Most are either still trying, acquired, or failed.
3
YC believes in investing in founders rather than companies
Tan points out that the best founders don’t treat their startup as a fixed concept but as a constant experiment. YC’s job, therefore, isn’t to predict which idea will work — it’s to back the people who will find the idea that works. That’s why YC’s track record isn’t defined by perfect ideas, but by resilient, adaptable founders who turn iterations into success stories.
6
YC founders as 100 people
Most YC founders come from computer science backgrounds, often graduating from top schools like Stanford and having work experience at big tech companies.
