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Paul Graham: Y Combinator Companies Have Raised Over $1 Billion

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Re: Paul Graham: Y Combinator Companies Have Raised Over $1 Billion

#5
How very Silicon Valley of the author to treat these numbers almost like they're profits, or any reasonable sort of "income" at all. The real question is: how much of that money has already been multiplied tenfold, through exits, IPOs or exorbitant profits?

Re: Paul Graham: Y Combinator Companies Have Raised Over $1 Billion

#6
post #5

How very Silicon Valley of the author to treat these numbers almost like they're profits, or any reasonable sort of "income" at all. The real question is: how much of that money has already been multiplied tenfold, through exits, IPOs or exorbitant profits?

Raising money isn't any indication for any success but is a nice accomplishment - money coupled with the mentoring and connection from ycombinator could significantly improve the companies odds to succeed.

These numbers are vanity metrics but are still indicating a trend - companies going through ycombinator are more likely to raise money than others.

I know I would go thru ycombinator - not because of the money I could raise easily but mostly because of the alumni network, connections and access to world class mentors.

You could have a look at what companies raised money and what were the successful exits to date: http://www.crunchbase.com/company/y-combinator

Re: Paul Graham: Y Combinator Companies Have Raised Over $1 Billion

#8
It's interesting, they invest an average of $15,000 in each company so let's say they have invested somewhere around 6M.

According the the FAQ (http://ycombinator.com/faq.html) they take an average of 6 or 7 percent stake in each company.

For shits and giggles let's use 6%. A low end estimate of their ROI would be around a whopping 174%. Their current holdings of the 7.78 Billion would be around 466 million.

This is all wacky math I realize but it's interesting to take into account how well this fund has done.

Re: Paul Graham: Y Combinator Companies Have Raised Over $1 Billion

#9
It's pretty incredible to think that YC is likely the highest performing venture fund in history.

For 380 companies that works out to about $7.6 million invested into a portfolio of companies worth $7.78 billion. Assuming a 2-7% stake for YC(after dilution), that puts the value of YC's share at $155-$545 million on that $7 million invested.

Re: Paul Graham: Y Combinator Companies Have Raised Over $1 Billion

#10
post #8

It's interesting, they invest an average of $15,000 in each company so let's say they have invested somewhere around 6M. According the the FAQ ( http://ycombinator.com/faq.html ) they take an average of 6 or 7 percent stake in each company. For shits and giggles let's use 6%. A low end estimate of their ROI would be around a whopping 174%. Their current holdings of the 7.78 Billion would be around 466 million. This i…

You're not taking into consideration the various dilutions and other preferred rights from other investors but all in all - it's clear that this fund will be very successful.
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