Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

37 YC Companies have valuations of or been sold for at least $40 Million

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 70 posts

Re: 37 YC Companies have valuations of or been sold for at least $40 Million

#61

Post by jessriedel »

brotchie wrote: post #27

In academia there's an author metric called the H-index > A scientist has index h if h of his/her Np papers have at least h citations each, and the other (Np − h) papers have no more than h citations each. I wonder if you could apply this same methodology to VC (the v-index) > A VC firm has index v if v of his/her Nc funded companies have had valuations of at least $v million, and the other (Nc − v) funded companies…

Your metric uses the arbitrary unit of 1 million dollars/company. The h-metric uses the imperfect but substantially less arbitrary unit of a citation/paper.

Re: 37 YC Companies have valuations of or been sold for at least $40 Million

#62

Post by beat »

pg wrote: post #13
hollerith wrote: post #8

I'd rather know the sum of the valuations of all 511 companies (with the ones tha closed down valued at zero of course). while I am making wishes, I'd also like to know what percentage of that total valuation is owned by cofounders rather than investors.

The total valuation of those 511 is currently about $11.5 billion. We ourselves don't know the percentage owned by founders. But considering that investors continually complain that YC companies are overpriced, it may be higher than the industry average.

Bah. They're not "overpriced" as long as someone is willing to pay the price. Startup pricing is about as close to a frictionless transaction as we're going to see. What they're actually complaining about is that the YC companies are getting better terms from investors, thanks to PG/YC's deliberate efforts to shift the balance of power in favor of the founders. I'm not crying tears for them. They don't like the terms, they're welcome to walk away from the table.

Re: 37 YC Companies have valuations of or been sold for at least $40 Million

#64

Post by jfb »

dmix wrote: post #29
wilfra wrote: post #3

https://twitter.com/heynavid/status/338813242799431681 @heynavid "@paulg which one was the biggest surprise to you?" @paulg "@heynavid Since I suspect they won't mind me saying so, Rap Genius." @RapGenius "@paulg @heynavid WOOP! I was surprised that PG is tight with NWA, personally.. http://rapgenius.com/Nwa-express-yourself-lyrics#note-318551 "

For anyone curious, the NWA lyrics: > "Now, getting back to the PG, that's program, and it's easy" Means "Parental Guidance". > Unlike most songs on the album and by N.W.A, the song is almost devoid of profanity and violent content. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Express_Yourself_(N.W.A_song)

It also builds on perhaps the greatest bass line sample ever, from Charles Wright's "Express Yourself".

Re: 37 YC Companies have valuations of or been sold for at least $40 Million

#65

Post by hglaser »

pg wrote: post #31
icpmacdo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it interesting that the current average valuation of a YC company is 22.5 million which is almost identical to what it was 2 years ago when there was 210 companys "the average value of startups we've funded is about $22.4 million" http://ycombinator.com/nums.html

That is interesting. The reason it hasn't changed is convertible notes. Now most of the fundraising immediately after Demo Day is on notes. Since a note doesn't establish a valuation, we add zero to the total valuation for those companies. So the number you get by dividing the total valuation by 511 ends up being pretty conservative; it's equivalent to assuming all the companies that have raised money on notes will g…

Why not use the valuation cap on the note (in cases where there is one) in place of the valuation? Is there a reason you wouldn't consider it equivalent to a valuation for the purposes of a rough calculation like this?

Re: 37 YC Companies have valuations of or been sold for at least $40 Million

#67

Post by pg »

pshin45 wrote: post #54

Unless you're a total hater, this is an amazing achievement no matter how you look at it. I just have one concern, however. Like most people on HN, I have a ton of respect for PG i.e. how smart he is, his willingness to share his knowledge with the world, and the way he has helped change Silicon Valley for the better. However, what happens if/when PG decides to hang it up? OR if "God forbid" he's forced to hang it up…

The difference between me and the other partners is mostly that I got to be publicly known by writing. On most topics there are other partners who can give better advice than me. PB gives better advice about hacking. Geoff gives better advice about b2b questions. Jessica is a better judge of people. Garry and Kevin are better on design. Sam Altman is better on fundraising. If I were hit by a bus tomorrow, YC would be pretty much as good as it is today.

This business is more naturally decentralized than a company like Apple. It consists mostly of individual conversations between founders and YC partners, and most of those conversations already don't include me.

Re: 37 YC Companies have valuations of or been sold for at least $40 Million

#68

Post by pg »

hglaser wrote: post #65
pg wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is interesting. The reason it hasn't changed is convertible notes. Now most of the fundraising immediately after Demo Day is on notes. Since a note doesn't establish a valuation, we add zero to the total valuation for those companies. So the number you get by dividing the total valuation by 511 ends up being pretty conservative; it's equivalent to assuming all the companies that have raised money on notes will g…

Why not use the valuation cap on the note (in cases where there is one) in place of the valuation? Is there a reason you wouldn't consider it equivalent to a valuation for the purposes of a rough calculation like this?

A valuation cap is merely an upper bound on a valuation. I'd rather be conservative and wait till there is a valuation.

Re: 37 YC Companies have valuations of or been sold for at least $40 Million

#69

Post by johnrob »

grinich wrote: post #6
johnrob wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

40 million is an arbitrary number, but it's still interesting that 7% is also the average YC equity stake.

Why is that interesting?

The way you justify taking x% equity is by offering to improve the odds of success by at least x%. 40 million is definitely above any basic notion of success, so it would indeed appear that YC is delivering.

Re: 37 YC Companies have valuations of or been sold for at least $40 Million

#70

Post by CarlosT »

outside1234 wrote: post #49

how many have done more than $40M in net income?

Don't know. However, $40M valuation implies 7% of YC companies have revenue run rates greater than ~$2.7M per year (i.e. assuming a price of ~15x revenue) In other words, 93% of YC companies have not made it to ~$2.7M per year in revenue.
Post reply on HN