Y Combinator, a startup accelerator has announced a list of 20 new sectors it intends to fund. In a blog post released on Wednesday, the institution made an idea list for startups that will be joining its program in 2024, which includes a way to end cancer, explainable AI, climate tech and others.
Y Combinator is an American technology startup accelerator launched in March 2005 that has been used as a launchpad by more than 4,000 companies. Since its establishment in 2005, the institution has been empowering entrepreneurs across the globe by providing seed funding, mentorship, and resources to startups.
With a strong focus on Africa, the US-based accelerator has helped fund and develop several successful African companies that are now household names. The company has invested in more than 80 African startups, including Flutterwave, Paystack, Kobo360, and Cowrywise.
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Usually, Y Combinator hosts two 3-month programs, one from January through March, and one from July through September. Startups join YC at all different stages, some with fully developed products, and some still in the ideation stage. Y Combinator invests $500,000 in every company on standard terms and the investment is made on 2 separate safes.
The new Y Combinator list of startup ideas
Y Combinator updates its list periodically, depending on what kinds of startups it sees gaining traction and where it thinks there’s opportunity. The new update released on Wednesday, represents the biggest overhaul to its “requests for startups” since 2018, per the firm.
Dalton Caldwell, the institution’s Managing Director said Y Combinator Group Partners meet and discuss the current batch every week and one common area of discussion is ideas. The questions revolve around “what kind of ideas are these founders having the best luck with? Which ones are they pivoting away from?”
He said:
“These discussions also do a good job of helping us notice the gaps. Ideas that should be made real — and that we’d want to fund! — but that we aren’t seeing many people work on or apply with. In a recent discussion like this, we realized it was time to put together an entirely new Request for Startups.”
Although Dalton Caldwell noted that the globe is full of founders with expertise that could be tapped into something new and great, he said the new areas YC is looking at startups from include: Applying machine learning to robotics, Using machine learning to simulate the physical world, New defence technology, Bring manufacturing back to America, New space companies, Climate tech, and Commercial open source companies.
Other areas that were mentioned in the list are: Spatial computing, New enterprise resource planning software (ERPs), Developer tools inspired by existing internal tools, Explainable AI, LLMs for manual back office processes in legacy enterprises, AI to build enterprise software, Stablecoin finance.
Read also: Here is how Google’s new AI tool, Gemini works
The remaining sectors in the new Y Combinator startup ideas list are: A Way to End Cancer, Foundation Models for biological systems, the Managed service organization model for Healthcare, Eliminating middlemen in Healthcare, Better Enterprise glue and Small fine-tuned models as an alternative to giant generic ones.
However, the Managing Director said these ideas are by no means the only ideas it would accept, adding that many of the best ideas are the ones it would never expect. Saying:
“If you aren’t sure what you want to work on, these RFSs should provide a useful jumping-off point to begin your ideation process.”
Importantly, applications for the Y Combinator Summer 2024 batch are open now and the early deadline to apply for the batch is February 20. Here is the application link.
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