Y Combinator Startups Now Have A Combined Valuation Of $13.7 Billion

And Sequoia backed startups now have a combined valuation of almost a trillion. These statistics are a bit meaningless. I'll wager that the median YC company has a negative opportunity cost for the founders.

It's a great headline for TC, but looking at the numbers from a slightly different perspective it wouldn't be hard to make a negative case either. Airbnb+Dropbox probably account for at least $8 billion, perhaps more. Figure that another 10 companies probably have Heroku-sized valuations and you're close to $11 billion. Now you're down to $2.7 billion spread among 500 or so companies. In any case, YC is in great shape, but don't be surprised if you see headlines equating YC founders to share croppers if YC is ever perceived to stumble.

Holy negativity. Why is the overall sentiment of the comment pool so cranky and skeptical?<p>1) YC startups have a combined valuation of $13.7B. Fact - groups of investors have valued YC startups individually, and in aggregate the current known valuation of the collective is $13.7B.<p>Does that number mean that much by itself? Perhaps not. Let&#x27;s see what else we know.<p>2) That valuation has grown by $2B since June. Also fact. And pretty incredible, that&#x27;s a 17% growth on valuation in 4-5 months.<p>Without making any comments on whether or not YC&#x27;s success rate is higher&#x2F;lower than average and whether or not YC is a benefit to the entrepreneurs it invests in (there&#x27;s no data presented here to make that assessment, but I&#x27;m sure it wouldn&#x27;t be hard to do), what YC has done in a short amount of time in helping build a tremendous amount of value in its companies is noteworthy - and that&#x27;s what I take away from this article.

These statistics are very meaningful because of YC&#x27;s transparency. The math is simple: YC has invested in 511 companies, this calculation uses an investment of $18,000 (the max YC investment) per company, equaling $9,198,000 total YC investment. YC investment results in an average of 6% ownership, 6% of $13.7B is $822,000,000. That ROI is phenomenal.<p>I personally believe YC is in a more enviable than Sequoia. Further, YC or at least the partners are in a position to participate in future rounds of funding for the YC companies, of course they will likely be paying a lot more for a lot less at that point...just like Sequoia.

And combined revenues of???

See <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5798512" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=5798512</a> for previous discussion on a related article.

The real question is how much of that is actually real?<p>Any VC can buy 10% of a company for $10 million. Doesn&#x27;t mean that it&#x27;s worth $100 million.<p>Valuations are usually complete bullshit. I wouldn&#x27;t rely on their proxy. They&#x27;re just another example of the anchoring bias.

There should be a YC startup stock exchange, even if it was with virtual money, just to see what happens.