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What startups is looking for Y Combinator in 2020

“People are more important than ideas.”
- Y Combinator
Many of the best ideas that we funded were ideas that surprised us, not the ideas we were waiting for.

However, there are some startup topics that we are very interested in. The following is an updated Request for Startups (RFS), which outlines some of these ideas.

1. AI
2. Bio
3. Brick and Mortar 2.0
4. Carbon Removal Technologies
5. Cellular Agriculture and Clean Meat
6. Cleaner Commodities
7. Computer Security
8. Diversity
9. Education
10. Energy
11. Enterprise Software
12. Financial Services
13 . Future of Work
14. Government 2.0 (NEW)
15. Healthcare
16. Improving Memory
17. Longevity and Anti-aging
18. One Million Jobs
19. Programming Tools
20. Robotics
21. Safeguards Against Fake Video
22. Supporting Creators
23. Transportation & Housing
24. Underserved Communities
25. Voice Apps
26. VR and AR

Please do not think that you need to work on one of these ideas in order to apply for Y Combinator. Although many of the areas listed below fall into the “advanced technology” category, the vast majority of startups that we finance will continue to be Internet companies and mobile companies that we financed in the past. If this is what you wanted to do before this post, continue to do it.

In addition, you should not create a company just because it is on this list. RFS basically exists to encourage you to apply if you are already working on an idea in one of these areas.

Artificial Intelligence


Artificial intelligence has a big impact on society . So big that we created a specific area for it inside YC .

It seems that this may be one of the dividing lines in the history of technology, where before and after they look completely different. We are interested in having people conduct research in any narrow field (drug discovery, programming assistance, legal advice, fraud detection, etc.), and we are especially interested in areas that are at the intersection of artificial intelligence and robotics (product manufacturing , unmanned vehicles, etc.)

Bio


It is too early to rush to conclusions, but it seems that we are finally making real progress by “hacking” biology.

We are confident that this will be an amazing, powerful and controversial area over the next few decades. A similar situation was with microcomputers in the 1970s.

Engineering principles are now regularly applied in synthetic biology, and biology affects all aspects of life from health care to production and even food and agriculture.

Biology can develop in many directions. This can be the fight against disease, slowing down aging, the fusion of people and computers, downloading memories, genetic programming, etc.

Reading DNA has become incredibly fast and cheap. There are many interesting applications. Perhaps even more interesting applications will appear as we improve the recording of DNA.

We are also interested in using biotechnology to prevent abuse of this technology. For example, if the bad guys can quickly create new infectious diseases, it would be nice if the good guys could quickly create new drugs and vaccines.

Note. To learn about the YC Bio program on health and biotechnology related to aging, click here .

Brick and Mortar 2.0 (Brick and Concrete 2.0)


We are interested in startups that present traditional advertising or retail space in interesting and effective ways.

Amazon is taking shopping malls and large stores out of business. Instead of fighting in a losing battle with Amazon, brands should rethink how to use the trading floors in such a way as to play on their strengths. For example, Tesla, Warby Parker, and Peloton use traditional facilities as showrooms that complement their online sales channels. Without the need to store inventory, trading space can be used much more efficiently.

The interesting use of regular space is not limited to retail stores: such tremendous changes are taking place with restaurants, entertainment venues, local service providers, and office buildings. New companies will be created specifically for customers who are trained to expect features such as online ordering, deep integration with other services, and immediate delivery. Flexibility is a key factor. For example, it is likely that enterprises of the future will use “micro-leasing,” which lasts days or even hours, rather than multi-year leases.

In addition, the era of large stores that have shifted consumer attention from the main street to suburban shopping centers surrounded by parking lots is likely to change as the era of self-government begins. When unmanned vehicles will be in use, our relationship with the physical space will develop in ways that are difficult to predict. We want to see startups that think about this change and create new ways to use physical space.

CO2 reduction


The Paris Agreement sets a global goal to limit the increase in Earth's temperature to 1.5 ° C this century. Just switching to renewable energy will not be enough to achieve this. We will also have to remove carbon from the atmosphere.

Carbon removal and sequestration technologies are still in their infancy. Current solutions can be divided into two groups: natural (for example, reforestation and bio-coal) and technological (for example, direct air capture). Two problems with direct air capture are costs and scale. Several countries, including the US, have recently stepped up and created financial incentives to remove carbon from the atmosphere, but with current technology this is still not cost-effective. For more information, please contact the Carbon Removal Center..

Other approaches to geoengineering to counter the effects of climate change may also have potential.

Meat


Recent scientific developments have changed our understanding of protein production.

For the first time, we can produce products that are scientifically indistinguishable from products of animal origin, such as meat and dairy products, using only cages and without harming animals.

Today, people use farm animals mainly for the production of meat and dairy products. Regardless of whether you think this is cruel and wasteful, we know that it is ineffective. More and more people eat meat every year, but most of the available agricultural land in our world is already used for meat production. The agricultural sector is the second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the world after the energy sector, and the use of antibiotics in agriculture is a real danger to our own health system.

Growing real animal meat directly from cages is a revolutionary science. We would like to fund more startups promoting this science to the market. We also want to finance startups specializing in the scaling phase of cell agriculture. The world will greatly benefit from more sustainable, cheaper and healthier meat production.

Cleaner Foods


At the current rate of deforestation, there will be no rainforests in 100 years.

There are many environmental reasons that explain why this is bad, but it will also become a problem for industries that rely on these increasingly scarce resources.

Startups have already begun to consider the need for cleaner consumer products, but industrial products such as palm oil and soybean receive less attention.

For example, palm oil is the most used vegetable oil in the world - it is about 50% of grocery store products. In 2016, the global palm oil market was valued at $ 65 billion, and is expected to reach $ 92 billion by 2021. But palm oil production, as a rule, is based on rough, environmentally destructive methods of cutting / burning, exploitative labor and gives the largest amount of emissions that bring global warming among all products except beef.

We believe that these market / low-tech industries can be interesting. Examples of startups we would like to see are those working on synthetic products, cleaner alternatives, or improving the supply chain. The issue of cost is likely to be very important here, much more important than for consumer goods. It would be great if new jobs were created or if the solution would include reforestation.

Computer security


Protecting computers is a rather difficult task, because the required work is terribly asymmetric - the attacker must find only one drawback, and the defender must protect against all possible vulnerabilities.

Unfortunately, ensuring computer security is not just difficult - it is critical and incredibly important. As more important information and systems connect to the Internet, we become more vulnerable to cyberattacks, and violations become more serious.

Diversity


The diversity of employees is very good for business and for the whole world.

Without different points of view, the products and services that we create miss big opportunities for large groups of people. We want to fund non-profit organizations and start-ups that work to make technology more attractive and attractive to people of all ages, races, sexual orientations and cultures.

Education


If we can fix the education, we can ultimately do the rest on this list.

The intellectual power of a person is not fully utilized on this planet, because most people do not have access to a good education. Strong educational programs lead to greater social mobility, better work, better quality of life for citizens, as well as an increase in the number of new and better startups. A small increase in the amount of knowledge gained in educational systems around the world would have a huge impact on human productivity and economic growth.

We are interested in new school models that can develop critical thinking, creativity, citizenship and work skills on a large scale. We are looking for ideas that combine technology and interaction between people to provide an individualized approach to learning.

We also know that 90% of the human brain develops before the age of 5, and gaps in achieving success open before the kindergarten. We are interested in enterprises that will significantly improve results for children under five years of age, reducing inequality and improving the quality of life for children and their families in the future. Scalable solutions in these areas should now be feasible thanks to the achievements of cognitive science and technologies such as smart home devices, smart and mobile devices.

Energy


There is a significant relationship between the cost of energy and the quality of life.

Throughout history, when the cost of energy has been greatly reduced (for example, in the case of a steam engine), the quality of life has improved significantly.

Cheap energy would make a significant contribution to poverty reduction. New sources of energy can also help the environment and the economy, reduce the number of wars, ensure a stable future, make food and water more accessible, and much more.

We believe that the economy will dominate - new sources should be cheaper than old ones, without subsidies, and be able to expand to global demand. Nuclear energy can “hit the deal” (hit the bid) and the same applies to renewable energy. But pricing is a matter of first importance.

In addition to generating electricity, we are also interested in storing and transferring energy. Batteries, which will be 10 times better, will allow you to invent many new great things, as well as the ability to easily transfer energy.

Software for large companies


The software used by large companies is still awful and still very profitable.

Category-making software companies appear to solve the problems of every industry, business of any size and every job function. Here are three specific areas that we find particularly interesting:

Cheaper expensive items : Due to the cost of traditional enterprise software, many categories of solutions were previously expensive for small or even medium-sized enterprises.

Another billion employees:Traditional office employees have been corporate software users. Mobile phones and tablets turn every employee — from the seller of a retail store to a member of a service team — into a knowledge worker.

Digitization of each industry: each industry goes through some form of information disruption; this leads to the fact that enterprises modernize their practices, use new data, accelerate key processes and provide digital interaction in the course of their work.

Financial servants


Global financial systems are increasingly unable to meet the needs of consumers and businesses.

This makes sense because the rules designed to protect customers cannot change fast enough to go at the pace at which technology is changing the needs of these customers. This discrepancy creates inefficiency at almost every level of the financial system. This affects how people invest their savings, how companies gain access to capital for growth, how risks are assessed and insured, and how financial companies do business with each other.

We believe that software will accelerate the pace of change in financial services and ultimately change the nature of the rules. We want to fund companies with new ideas on how to do this.

Work of the future


The work will look very different after 25 years.

We have already seen a huge shift towards automation, robots and artificial intelligence, and the pace of their impact on the work does not slow down.

There is uncertainty as to whether these new technologies will lead to more or less jobs in the aggregate. We are interested in your opinion about what will happen and what will happen next.

In particular, we want to find out what new work will be created to use these new technologies. And what can be built to help people and companies adapt to the changing demands of the skills they face.

We also want to know how the meaning of the work will develop. People seek full-time jobs for many reasons, including money, healthcare, and a sense of purpose. We would like to see solutions that relate to each of these factors (or any other) in anticipation of a change in the labor market.

Government 2.0


In 2018, the Pew Research Center reported that 57% of Americans believe that today's children in America will live worse financially than their parents. Since 2013, this number has reached 65% - despite the fact that we have been in the zone of economic growth for ten years.

We believe that such thinking is the result of increased family debt, wage stagnation and a lack of government commitment to ensure equal access to basic services that families need to prosper. These services include access to quality education, affordable housing, health care, food, physical security, breaking news and information, a social safety net and a liveable environment.

Healthcare


Health care in the United States is severely impaired. We are approaching spending 20% ​​of our GDP on health; it is no good.

We are interested in making health care better for less money, and not in companies that are going to use the system to weld onto it.

We are especially interested in healthcare startups working in the following areas:

  • Diagnosis: Diagnosis guides clinical decisions and can have a significant impact on healthcare. Now we can build diagnostics cheaper and faster than ever before, and the most important features are to take advantage of this.
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Human memory is too volatile.

Compared to computers, people have a rather strange memory system. We can recall the subtle emotions and feelings of 10 years ago, while forgetting where our phone is and what you need to take in the store. The increasing bombardment of information and ideas, of course, does not facilitate the work of our memory, as do age-related diseases such as dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

The fusion of man and computer is already happening. Some solutions, such as voice assistants and carriers, can help supplement short-term memory. More sophisticated approaches relate to neural interfaces, but new UX issues arise. We want to finance startups that are exploring how to improve human memory through technology. Ideally, we cansolve Mitch Hedberg’s problem once and for all.

Longevity and rejuvenation


YC Bio is a new way for YC to fund early life science companies that are still in the lab phase. The first area we are going to focus on is health and age-related diseases.

We believe that there is a great opportunity to help people live healthier longer and that this may be one of the best ways to solve our health crisis.

It will be a special way. Companies will go through the standard YC procedure, but there will be some differences. Instead of the usual transaction for YC-companies (which is $ 120,000, for a 7% stake), we will offer these companies any amount from $ 500,000 to $ 1,000,000 for a 10-20% stake, linearly scaling. We will also offer companies free laboratory space, a number of special deals and access to a wide range of experts.

Million jobs


We want to finance companies that can create a million jobs.

There are many areas where it makes sense to divide labor between people and computers - we are very well versed in some things in which computers are terrible, and vice versa - and some of them require a huge amount of human resources.

This is good for the world, and probably this is in principle a good business strategy - as existing jobs go away, a company that creates many new jobs should be able to get many talented people.

Development tools


Software developers are affecting our daily lives more and more.

The products that they use to create software are powerful leverage: they have a significant impact on the quality and type of software being created.

We are interested in helping developers create software faster. This includes new ways to write, understand, and collaborate with code, as well as the next generation of tools and infrastructure for continuous and reliable software delivery.

We believe that it is especially important to create products that make software development available to the widest part of our society. In fact, we are particularly interested in new ways of programming. There are probably much better ways for people to program, and finding one of them will have a huge effect.

Frameworks are better, languages ​​are a little smarter, but basically we do the same.

You can think in this way: what comes after programming languages?

Robotics


Robots will be the main way to achieve results in the physical world.

Our definition is quite broad - for example, we consider an unmanned vehicle as a robot. Robots are how we are likely to explore space and, possibly, even the human body.

Fake Video Protection


Fake videos are becoming more and more common .

The technology for creating fake videos, indistinguishable from real ones, now exists, and soon it will be widely available to anyone who has a smartphone.

We are interested in financing technologies that will provide the public with the tools necessary to identify fake video and audio.

Creator Support


The Internet has facilitated the spread of creative work to millions of people, but no one understood how to help creators earn a living.

In art there is an army of intermediaries, which is located between the "artist" and the "spectator".

Each intermediary eats away part of every dollar earned by the creator. We want to see more startups that build a direct conveyor from artist to fan.

We believe that there are ways to create platforms that are more convenient for developers, and we are interested in projects that make it easier for creators to attract financing, track the use of their work and prevent piracy.

Transport and housing


About half of all energy is used for transport, and people spend a huge amount of time on dull daily trips to work from the suburbs and back.

Face-to-face meetings are still very important; people still need to move around. And housing continues to rise in price, in part due to transportation issues. We are interested in that people can live somewhere in a good place, work together and easier to get to work from the suburbs and back.

In particular, we are interested in light cargo trips over short distances.

Inadequate communities and social services


Tens of millions of working poor in America do not see the way to the middle class.

These people are forced to navigate the world with low-quality services, low quality housing, crowded schools and crime in their areas. They often do not have a bank account and live from paycheck to paycheck.

The US government spends hundreds of billions of dollars a year on social services and social protection programs for these low-income communities.

We believe that large nonprofit and commercial companies can bring technology and strong performance-based approaches to this large-scale neglected market.

Voice assistants


Tens of millions of families have smart voice assistants.

We are interested in figuring out which voice applications will be most valuable on this new platform.

Voice applications are so different from typical web applications that we believe that creating products that attract and retain users will require a lot of innovation.

Companies with voice applications that participate in YC will have direct access to Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.

VR and AR


Virtual reality and augmented reality have long been an unfulfilled promise.

But we feel the wave is coming, and it is time to start working on it.

Notes


How well you fit this list will never be a decisive factor in who we finance. As we have repeatedly said, people are more important than ideas . In addition, you cannot work well on something unless you are really interested in it. Therefore, do not grab onto the idea described in RFS if there is any other idea that you better work on. You are much more likely to receive funding to work on an idea that you really like.

Thanks for the translation to Diana Sheremieva and Andrei Goncharov.

PS


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