Y Combinator Unloads Massive New Batch of Start-Ups

We don't have any power to stop companies from taking investment. Nor would we want to, especially in these uncertain times. We usually encourage companies to take money before DDay if a legit investor makes them an offer that doesn't require a lot of negotiation.

What we did differently this time was that we didn't hold an event we have in the past called Angel Day, at which we introduced startups early to a select group of angels. We found this was turning into a de facto early Demo Day, and that was bad because it was causing the startups to be pushed into fundraising mode early.

They compare themselves along side Vimeo Pro and Youtube, under their pricing they list "free" (Vimeo being $199, Youtube also free) and then under a bunch of options for Vidyard that are ONLY available if you pay >cost of Vimeo pro they add a tick, which would imply that they're available for free. It's misleading, it implies it's cheaper to use Vidyard (which it isn't)

Anyway, a lot of them were really cool, some of the presentations were hilarious, and it just amplified the feeling that there a ton of enormous opportunities in software (which is pretty obvi.com, I suppose).

The most interesting trend I saw was a surprising number of cos focused on "the future of banner/display ads".

Must've escaped my notice, being busy defending my doctoral thesis and all.

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Working in an exceptionally well-organized lab (in terms of ordering etc.) and still having iLab shoved down our collective throats (http://www.ilabsolutions.com/) here's what in my experience is the biggest barrier to adoption amongst all fancy-shmancy lab organizing/ordering e-solutions:

NONE of the systems allow for direct ordering from the vendor.

What I mean by that is the lab manager (or the person with appropriate authority) cannot just click "Place order" and have the item automatically ordered from the vendor's website. This makes all such solutions the most brain-dead, needlessly repetitive method of ordering lab goods. This completely defeats the very purpose of having such a system in place. How is this really any better than an excel spreadsheet? In my experience, this is the single biggest hurdle to adoption of such systems by many (better-organized) academic labs.

I will be way more than happy to talk with anyone from Quartzy to explain the above in more detail (I am ranting and may not be clear in articulating these things here). Therefore, please do feel free to contact me, a real-world user.

So what is needed?

Anyone who comes up with a method/system to connect direct ordering from within your e-solution software/portal to the outside vendor will win this competition. Now this may well be the proverbial can of worms. Each vendor website will have their own idiosyncrasies and will require serious effort to make things work, but if you can make it work, I guarantee you will be the chosen solution amongst the many out there.

Of course, having all vendors agree to a unified ordering API would be the ideal solution. You could come up with such a solution that may be licensed to multiple vendors (and supported by you), hopefully the vendors will also see value in using/supporting such an API (orders placed via your portal) and the entire system will be of mutual benefit to you, the vendor and most importantly, end users like me.

Fin.

Angel List has helped over 500 companies get funded in the last year. Angel pad launched 24 companies, IO Ventures launced 14, 500 Startups launched 24 in the last few months.

I'd argue that more and more people are doing startups, and that the market for early capital is more efficient than it's ever been.

Great batch of companies. Kudos.

I can't see any of the many scientists I know outsourcing their work. It beats the point! Maybe for the corporate science industry -- where they just need to perform certain tests as cheaply and quickly as possible, and with a preferred result if possible -- it could gain some traction. But I don't see this gaining anything in the universities. Or rather, perhaps I hope it doesn't.

[1] http://scienceexchange.com/

What's up with that?

1. Quartzy this sounds trivial but could in fact be huge. Also, think about the trend of personalized medicine...

2. Munch On Me, I just like food :)

3. MarketBrief, this is exactly the kind of automation we need more of.

4. Stypi might be better as Google+ done right!

5. Science Exchange if this works, it could speed up R&D tremendously.

Not sure about "Google Wave done right", only read their description though so can't comment.

It's great publicity having the YC name attached to your startup, but it's a lot of companies to look at in a single sitting. Surely, each one gets a bit less time and attention, which devalues the publicity somewhat.

do it big!

Among the revealed ones I am most excited about (and would invest in) Parse -- solves a real problem, it is easy to see how it can be commercially viable, and there is very little technology risk. Kind of wish I had thought of it. An obvious target to be acqhired by one of the PaaS vendors.