RejectedByYC
A curated list of companies and founders rejected by YC*
| Founder | Evidence | Current companies |
|---|---|---|
| Sarah Hum | "Don't be sorry! Ahahah we got rejected by YC and didn't try for investment again after that so all is good 😊 By investor chats turned down I mean we are turning down outreach from investors" read more | canny.io |
| Laura Behrens Wu | "...My fundraising story is a lot about rejection. We applied to Y Combinator and we got rejected. We applied to 500 Startups and we got rejected as well..." read more | https://goshippo.com |
| Janine Sickmeyer | "Founders rejected by YC, I see you. I applied 5xs to YC and 5xs to Techstars and never got accepted. Each year I saw the same people get in, get high valuations, and get terms sheets. They didn't look like me: solo pregnant woman founder from the midwest." read more | https://janine.substack.com |
| Pieter Levels | "for anyone stressing about Y Combinator rejections, I was rejected from YC when I applied years ago! I built my own companies without funding instead and now work for them full time!!!" read more | https://levels.vc, https://ApplicantAI.com, https://TherapistAI.com, https://PhotoAI.com, https://InteriorAI.com, https://NomadList.com, https://RemoteOK.com |
| Ben | "2 years ago @contra had just been rejected by YC for the 3rd time. Even worse, we were rejected by almost every VC firm we pitched in NYC. It’s hard to believe I get to say this, but today Contra is announcing our launch of Zero Commission Payments and our $30M series B." read more | https://contra.com/ |
| Alex MacCaw | "I've been rejected twice 😂" read more | Reflect Notes |
| Damon Chen | "Last year I interviewed with YC. Because I'm a solo founder, they can't be convinced if I am running real biz or just a lifestyle one, so I got rejected. A year later, my biz has grown 300%, and my family has expanded by 1. I'm happier than ever! And, I'm still soloing ✌️" read more | https://PDF.ai, https://Testimonial.to |
| Joel Gascoigne | "When Buffer was in its very early stages, just a couple months after the product launched, we applied to be part of the prestigious Y Combinator accelerator program. We were rejected..." read more | https://buffer.com |
| Anand Jain | "We didn’t make it to the YC W14 batch*. We were interviewed by Paul Buchheit, Harj Taggar, Kevin Hale and Jessica Livingston..." read more | https://clevertap.com |
| Alex Tew | "YC rejects that became $1B+ companies: SendGrid, Calm, Cameo" read more | https://calm.com |
| Gagan Biyani | "I’m biased but @udemy is a true underdog story + thought I’d share details we’ve never shared before. ICYMI, we announced a $50M raise at $2B valuation. Udemy almost died at least 5x. We got rejected by everyone in the Valley. Startups are never a straight line. Read on" read more | maven.com |
| Sabba Keynejad | "After being rejected by YC, we bootstrapped Veed.io to $4m ARR in less than 2 years. We're Sabba and Tim. Ask us anything!" read more | veed.io |
| Tyler Tringas | "I was also rejected by YC ¯_(ツ)_/¯" read more | calmfund.com |
| John O'Nolan | "We were also rejected, twice. So raised $350k on Kickstarter for 0% equity (vs YC $120k for 7%) Since then have gone on to make $3.2million revenue from customers for 0% equity (vs Series A ~$1m for 20%) 5yrs later: Profitable & 100% control of own destiny 👍🏼 no regrets" read more | ghost.org |
| Pat Walls | "Hope you guys enjoy this one - spent a lot of time on it! Some things I talk about: - Spending 6 months on a product and getting rejected by YC..." read more | https://starterstory.com |
| Michael Vega-Sanz | "nitially rejected by our school’s accelerator, 47 insurance companies declined working with us, 500+ investors passed on us, rejected by YC several times..." read more | lula.com |
| Henry Mao | "2019: we started Jenni in our college basement fine-tuning GPT-2 2020: all our pilot users churned due to COVID 2021: we got rejected by YC W21" read more | jenni.ai |
| Gaurav Munjal | "We were rejected by @ycombinator twice 😀" read more | https://unacademy.com |
| Fredrik | "The story of when @DuneAnalytics applied to @ycombinator in 2018 . Was on the video call 9PM Friday night and sat there for 2 hours without it working. Never got rescheduled, then got bulk rejected a few days later. Took us another 6 months after this to close our pre-seed" read more | https://dune.com |
| Peer Richelsen | "YC rejected Calendso (now http://cal.com) a year ago. Now we raised a Series A..." read more | Cal.com |
| Eyad Gomaa | read more | silxai.com |
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