where did you get the money to build all this? if you already have this sort of money, what do you need YC for?
We've found YC enormously helpful and worth the dilution, providing structure, advice, and also momentum. We've gotten a ton done this summer!
Best of luck to them of course.
But they already built a couple of models before YC. It makes financial sense to dilute by 7% and use the name recognition to drive a much higher valuation.
But this does squeeze out the true pre-seed teams.