Ask HN: European founders in YC?

YC has a lot of founders from outside of the US. There were four teams from outside of the US in our YC class, two from Canada, one from the UK and one team from Austria. I can think of at least four other teams from abroad from previous classes.<p>In fact there is a kind of UK YC inside YC. The UK guys really stick together and help each other out. If you can get a hold of any of them I'm sure they'll point you in the right direction.<p>Papers and immigration are always a difficult issue. In most cases you can get a work visa or whatever visa lets you attend conferences in the US and it will be enough for the 3 month YC session.

The two that come to mind of the top of my head are Songkick and Clickpass, both from the UK.<p>Here was a previous discussion on the topic: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=158969" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=158969</a><p>searchyc.com is your friend.

Just to clarify you are asking about founders from outside the US moving to the US and getting work permits. Not the otherway round, right?<p>If it's the other way (in Holland at least) it will be easiest if one of the founders/employees can be recognized as an knowledge migrant.

I am sure there are a few UK YC startups. Below is what I can recall off the top of my head.<p>The blogs in particular may hold useful info for you regarding getting visas and working in the U.S. plus the journey in startup as a whole - I particularly like <a href="http://www.kulveer.co.uk" rel="nofollow">http://www.kulveer.co.uk</a> and <a href="http://blog.harjtaggar.com" rel="nofollow">http://blog.harjtaggar.com</a> who are the <a href="http://www.auctomatic.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.auctomatic.com</a> guys as they give a good level of detail throughout their journey.<p>However, <a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/02/coming-to-america-getting-visas-to-do-business-in-silicon-valley/#more-17036" rel="nofollow">http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/02/coming-to-america-getti...</a> (or <a href="http://is.gd/1Vrf" rel="nofollow">http://is.gd/1Vrf</a> in short) by Peter from ClickPass could be what you were referring to and probably holds most of the answers you want in the most succinct form.<p>Anyway, I'm sure if you contact them they may be answer specific visa questions from their experience. Hope this helps.<p>---<p><pre><code> http://www.auctomatic.com http://auctomatic.com/about http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=kul http://www.kulveer.co.uk http://twitter.com/kul http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=harj http://blog.harjtaggar.com http://twitter.com/harjeet http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=pc http://www.collison.ie/ http://twitter.com/patrickc [John Collison] http://twitter.com/collision http://snaptalent.com http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=sharpshoot http://sharpshoot.blogspot.com/ http://twitter.com/sharpshoot http://www.songkick.com/ http://www.songkick.com/team http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ian http://twitter.com/soundboy http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=petesmithy http://twitter.com/petesmithy http://www.clickpass.com/ http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=immad http://www.immadsnewworld.com/ http://twitter.com/immad http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=petenixey http://www.webkitchen.co.uk/ http://twitter.com/petenixey http://webmynd.com/ http://webmynd.wordpress.com http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=amirnathoo http://twitter.com/amirnathoo http://www.scoopler.com http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ajmalasver http://blog.projectbluespark.com/ http://twitter.com/_aj http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dilanj http://meonearth.blogspot.com/ http://twitter.com/_dilan</code></pre>