In a city that plays it safe, incubator has a tough job

tptacek · on June 2, 2008

In this article, Graham says "about 85 percent of the companies eventually receive further funding". Elsewhere, on this message board, he has put the number closer to 1 in 8. In 5 minutes of Google searching, the best I came up with was:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=145760

Which says (non-authoritatively, and in paraphrase) "50% of the minority of companies that we fund that want VC score it".

I'm sure there's a semantic thing going on here that reconciles these figures, but I'm wondering what it is.

cperciva · on June 2, 2008

I'm sure there's a semantic thing going on here that reconciles these figures, but I'm wondering what it is.

"receive further funding" != "get VC".

Most YC companies get their further funding from sources other than VCs -- as pg points out in the comment you linked to, most of them go with angels.

tptacek · on June 2, 2008

You're probably right, but an angel offers a 6-12 month runway, and YC has a longer track record than that. Graham gave a more definitive answer on the number of YC investments that had taken A rounds, but I haven't been able to find it.

I'm not disagreeing, I'm just curious.

josefresco · on June 2, 2008

Why does Azuki need funding when the guys behind it are worth 'hundreds of millions' of dollars? They should be running funds themselves.

davidw · on June 2, 2008

More random hints about Tsumobi without any meat. Argh:-)

bprater · on June 2, 2008

Better title might be nice: "PG Video Interview" or something....

SwellJoe · on June 2, 2008

I though the lack of linkbait was refreshing.

drm237 · on June 2, 2008

Did you see the article under the video? There's a 2 page article which has more content than the video...

tokipin · on June 2, 2008

perhaps by better title he meant something that would get a lot more attention