YC’s Winter 2022 Demo Day featured a record number of founders and their incredible ideas. Over half of this cohort were accepted to the accelerator without having a minimum viable product or any established revenue strategy. To get an insight into the mind-set of this inspiring group of entrepreneurs, YC has again provided us with a window into the kind of startups making their way into the market.
It is no surprise that the most common verticals for this batch are developer operations, open source and artificial intelligence. While these key developments are noteworthy, YC is working hard to promote diversity amongst its teams. This was evident from the 2021 batch, with 17% of the companies founded by women – an increase from the previous batch’s 15% figure.
To highlight some of our favorite startups from the first half of Demo Day, we take a look at our selection.
One of the most intriguing of the bunch is Grain. The company is focused on modernizing the outmoded architecture of distributed software by combining their own GrainOS operating system with hardware packages dubbed “Pods”. Grain simplifies and improves the way companies deploy distributed services while allowing them to track the performance of their architecture in a real-time dashboard. Co-founded by former Dropbox employee Armon Dadgar, Grain aims to streamline the way teams build for long-term success.
Another company making waves is Chef. Founded by Jesse Robbins, Chef’s vision is to create a platform that helps close the gap between product managers and software engineers. The promise of Chef is that it will facilitate the seamless workflow of teams by helping facilitate the development of distributed applications. With its automated cloud-ready services, Chef aims to make it easier to ship code everywhere without any issues.
Also featured at the winter Expo was Anobii. Founded by Kelsey Hightower and Dana Contreras, the company is focused on inspiring entrepreneurs and helping them turn their ideas into profitable companies. By leveraging digital tools and high-touch customer support, Anobii sets out to make the business journey less complex so more people can join the ranks of small businesses.
These are just some of the fantastic startups that have captured our attention at YC’s Winter 2022 Demo Day. Each of these companies promises to bring something new to the industry and will undoubtedly play an integral role in making the future a better place. With movements towards better technology and increased diversity in the startup scene, the future for these companies looks bright.
