Liz Gannes

Recent Posts by Liz Gannes

Meet Y Combinator's Latest Class

Y Combinator on Tuesday showed off its latest class of start-ups at its Mountain View, CA, headquarters, offering an extra-large sampler pack of developer tools; social apps; lots of services for markets like real estate, doctors and parents; and, of course, a few of its trademark productivity apps.

With able assistance from my colleague Drake Martinet, here are the official bios and snapshots of the 43 presenting companies at Demo Day Winter 2011. But–frowny face–19 of the two-minute presentations were deemed “off the record,” so they’re not included.

Y Combinator had 80 percent more applications for this class than the one six months prior, said leader Paul Graham. In January, all the participating start-ups were offered $150,000 in convertible debt from the new Start Fund. Graham said one start-up did not present because it already had a Series A term sheet with a “no-shop” clause.

Be sure to check out the gallery at the bottom. And now, the newest companies of Y Combinator:

Comprehend Systems
http://www comprehendsystems.com
Enterprise cross-database reporting and visualization.

Convore
https://convore.com/
Real-time group conversations. Chat with public and private groups on the Web, or the iPhone app IRC for everyone.

HelloFax
http://www.hellofax.com
A Web-based replacement for your fax machine.

Tutorspree
http://www.tutorspree.com
Airbnb for tutoring.

Memorable quote: “[Tutorspree Co-founder] Josh [Abrams], in his spare time, is the largest wholesaler of diamonds on Amazon.”

Earbits Radio
http://www.earbits.com
Internet radio that serves as a marketing platform for music-related products. Labels, artists and live music promoters bid for airtime.

Shortcut description: “The Google AdWords for the music industry.”

TellFi
https://www.tellfi.com
The easiest way to set up a phone system for your business.

Beetailer
http://www.beetailer.com
Beetailer helps online retailers bring their businesses onto Facebook, importing their existing Web store, providing tools for promoting it and detailed performance statistics.

FitFu
http://www.fitfu.com/s/buy/yc
Motivating mobile fitness game to keep you active throughout the day.

You Got Listings
http://www.yougotlistings.com/
The real estate platform for all properties, brokers and transactions.

drchrono
https://drchrono.com
IPad EMR for doctors.

Custora
http://www.custora.com
Google brings customers in, we keep them coming back.

Taskforce
http://taskforceapp.com
Makes your inbox work as the to-do list you’re using it for.

Lanyrd
http://lanyrd.com
IMDB of conferences.

SwipeGood
https://swipegood.com
Round up credit or debit card transactions for charity.

GiftRocket
http://www.giftrocket.com
Gift cards to anywhere.

Noteleaf
http://noteleaf.com
Mobile meeting profiles pushed to your phone.

Grubwithus
http://www.grubwith.us
Meet new people at a family-style meal. For users it has the appeal of a dating site; for restaurants, the appeal of Groupon.

AppHarbor
http://appharbor.com
“Heroku for .NET”–a platform as a service for .NET developers and businesses.

MinoMonsters
http://minomonsters.com/
MinoMonsters is a social game where you collect and battle pet monsters on Facebook, the Web and the iPhone. We are Pokemon for 2011.

Curebit
http://www.cureblt.com
We productize the world’s most effective marketing–word of mouth. We take the incentivized referral model from Dropbox and make it easily available to everyone.

Moki.tv
http://moki.tv/
Personalized TV guide for streaming video online. Aggregates Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, etc., and adds algorithmic recommendations. The first stop for anyone who wants to watch something online.

Like.fm
http://like.fm
Like.fm takes all of your music and makes it social. We track everything you listen to and make it extremely easy to share with and discover from people.

Sendoid
http://sendoid.com
Private, massive file transfer via direct peer-to-peer, in-browser and on the desktop.

Five Stars
http://www.fivestarscard.com
A universal loyalty card for retail businesses. The card is the first link between cash registers, customers’ email and Facebook accounts.

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Just as the atom bomb was the weapon that was supposed to render war obsolete, the Internet seems like capitalism’s ultimate feat of self-destructive genius, an economic doomsday device rendering it impossible for anyone to ever make a profit off anything again. It’s especially hopeless for those whose work is easily digitized and accessed free of charge.

— Author Tim Kreider on not getting paid for one’s work