What’s going on at Y Combinator?
View More Y Combinator president Sam Altman is stepping down amid a series of changes at the acceleratorCategory: yc
RankScience closes $1.8M seed — and now only wants to replace human SEO staff if you don’t have any
A couple of years ago YC-backed RankScience, which offers AI-enhanced SEO split-testing, put a few SEO experts’ noses out of joint when the fledgling startup brashly talked about replacing human expertise with automation. Two years on its pitch has mellowed, with the team saying their self-service platform is “augmenting human SEO ability rather than replacing […]
View More RankScience closes $1.8M seed — and now only wants to replace human SEO staff if you don’t have anySafety and inspection bot startup Gecko Robotics adds $7 million to the coffers
Gecko Robotics aims to save human lives at our nation’s power plants with its wall-climbing robots. To continue doing so, the startup tells TechCrunch it has just secured $7 million from a cadre of high-profile sources, including Founders Fund, Mark Cuban, The Westly Group, Justin Kan and Y Combinator. We first reported on the Pittsburgh-based company when […]
View More Safety and inspection bot startup Gecko Robotics adds $7 million to the coffersY Combinator is launching a startup program in China
U.S. accelerator Y Combinator is expanding to China after it announced the hiring of former Microsoft and Baidu executive Qi Lu who will develop a standalone startup program that runs on Chinese soil. Shanghai-born Lu spent 11 years with Yahoo and eight years with Microsoft before a short spell with Baidu, where he was COO and […]
View More Y Combinator is launching a startup program in ChinaY Combinator invests in HappiLabs to help scientists shop smarter
To create life-saving drugs or groundbreaking technological advancements, scientists first need the proper lab equipment. Everything from intricate and expensive specialized machines to beakers and rubber gloves must be sourced, price compared and ordered by a lab manager before even the first steps toward discovery can take place. But, says Tom Ruginis, CEO and founder […]
View More Y Combinator invests in HappiLabs to help scientists shop smarterInkHunter heads to YC to build a try-and-buy tattoo marketplace
InkHunter, an augmented reality tattoo try-on app that was born out of a 48-hour hackathon back in the altogether gentler days of 2014 has bagged a place in Y Combinator’s summer 2018 batch, scoring itself the seed accelerator’s standard $120,000 deal in exchange for 7% equity. We first covered InkHunter in April 2016 when it had […]
View More InkHunter heads to YC to build a try-and-buy tattoo marketplaceBen is a chatbot that lets you learn about and buy Bitcoin
It’s generally a given that whenever a new technology takes off people rush into the space to build everything under the sun, and eventually natural selection kicks in and only the truly useful remain. For example, chatbots became trendy last year and we quickly began seeing chatbots for weather, movie recommendations, personal finance, etc. Some of […]
View More Ben is a chatbot that lets you learn about and buy BitcoinThis company will tell you which vitamins and supplements to take based on your DNA
Nutrigene believes your genes may hold the secret to what you might be missing in your diet. The company will send you tailor-made liquid vitamin supplements based on a lifestyle quiz and your DNA. Read More
View More This company will tell you which vitamins and supplements to take based on your DNAStoryline lets you build and publish Alexa skills without coding
Thirty-nine million Americans now own a smart speaker device, but the voice app ecosystem is still developing. While Alexa today has over 25,000 skills available, a number of companies haven’t yet built a skill for the platform, or offer only a very basic skill that doesn’t work that well. That’s where the startup Storyline comes in. The company is offering an easy to use… Read More