Startups from Y Combinator’s S19 Demo Day 2

Post by mandeepj » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 6:25 PM UTC

whoisjuan wrote: post #88

elmar wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

:) well I posted on a FYI - For Your Information only angle. My thoughts: seed valuations for YC Demo Day are probably on a all time high, VC's giving gifts to be able to get in rounds looks like something out of Silicon Valley HBO, ok I remembered everything on SV HBO is based on real life events.

I think the most ridiculous thing is not even the gift, but the fact that it is a Tandem bike (just because of the name). What's the rationale there? "Ohh their name is Tandem. Let's buy them a Tandem bike to convince them to accept our term sheet. It's our fiduciary responsibility to do this stupid thing". For me, that's just a red flag. How little can you add to a company besides money, that you have to resort to t…

Post by elmar » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 6:48 PM UTC

austenallred wrote: post #120

elmar wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

:) well I posted on a FYI - For Your Information only angle. My thoughts: seed valuations for YC Demo Day are probably on a all time high, VC's giving gifts to be able to get in rounds looks like something out of Silicon Valley HBO, ok I remembered everything on SV HBO is based on real life events.

> VC's giving gifts to be able to get in rounds looks like something out of Silicon Valley HBO It's actually super common. I've probably received 20+ random gifts. Everything from shoes to jackets to bitcoin miners and bottles of wine (I don't drink). If there's a $7.5m deal that will eventually be worth 10x that (say it returns $75m to the investor), a $200 tandem bike doesn't really move the needle.

Post by amsilprotag » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 6:56 PM UTC

elmar wrote: post #28

Fresh out of Y Combinator, Tandem lands millions from Andreessen Horowitz https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/20/tandem/ "is raising a $7.5 million seed financing at a valuation north of $30 million" "We’re told several top venture capital firms were vying for a stake in Tandem. One firm even gifted the founders a tandem bike, sources tell TechCrunch, resorting to amusing measures to sway the Tandem team. But it was a16z…

Post by bch » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 7:07 PM UTC

mathattack wrote: post #124

bch wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really your point, but if somebody gifted a $500 tandem/boat anchor for a $30MM co, that might indeed be a red flag. A $500 tandem is probably a boat anchor no matter what the circumstances are...

This is the norm in business. It forces reciprocity. It’s why most sales orgs spend so much on business entertainment.

Post by DrAwdeOccarim » Wed, Aug 21, 2019, 7:39 PM UTC

wiggles_md wrote: post #70

DrAwdeOccarim wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rejuvenation Technologies is based on this paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4415018/ I hope they can get this to work! The issue is their paper uses technology covered by other players in the space who have a decade head start and significant research budgets. Maybe they'll get bought out, but my guess is delivery and CMC are hurdles they'll run up against and then have a hard time getting follow-o…

Your link is to the patent application. If you check PAIR, you’ll see that only a small subset of the claims, amended, have received NOA. I would tend to disagree about the strength of their IP portfolio based on a cursory glance at the publicly available info, but I’d be curious to hear why you think differently.