YC Summer 2012 (S12) companies

9GAG operates a global entertainment and social media platform where users share and discover humorous content, memes, and videos. It serves a general consumer audience seeking casual entertainment and conversation, replacing passive broadcast media with peer-driven, community-curated content. The platform distributes across web, mobile, and major social networks including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Airshared builds a consumer and SaaS product accessible at getcycle.com. The program description and website content are not available, so the specific customer, job, and work replaced cannot be determined from current sources.

Arc builds cameras designed for aerial videography, serving industries that rely on drones and robotics to capture footage from the air. The product targets operators who need purpose-built imaging hardware for airborne platforms, replacing general-purpose cameras that are not optimized for flight.

Assorted Bits builds a mobile calendar focused on social plans between friends. Rather than tracking work obligations, it gives users a dedicated space to organize leisure activities and coordinate schedules with their personal circles.

BackerKit builds crowdfunding software and a native crowdfunding platform for independent creators. Its pledge manager handles post-campaign operations, including backer surveys, add-ons, and fulfillment logistics, that creators would otherwise track manually or across disconnected tools. In 2022, BackerKit extended into a full campaign platform, letting creators launch, run, and close crowdfunding projects end-to-end without relying on Kickstarter or Indiegogo.

Benchling builds a cloud-based R&D platform for biotech scientists, covering electronic lab notebooks, workflow automation, data modeling, and AI-assisted experiment design. It serves teams across drug discovery, biologics development, and bioprocess, replacing disconnected paper records, spreadsheets, and legacy informatics tools. The platform connects wet lab execution, instrument data, and computational science into a unified system so research data compounds across experiments.

Boosted designs and builds lightweight electric longboards for urban commuters covering the last mile of their daily trip. The boards replace walking, biking, or rideshare for short-distance legs, combining a performance ride with a portable form factor. The product targets commuters who want a faster, more enjoyable alternative to foot travel between transit stops and their destination.

BrainTripping builds consumer-facing travel planning tools that help individuals organize and discover trip ideas. The product targets everyday travelers looking to simplify the process of researching and arranging trips.

BufferBox builds a network of automated self-service kiosks for parcel delivery, serving both shipping carriers and package recipients. It solves the failed-delivery problem: when a recipient is not home, the carrier drops the parcel at a nearby kiosk instead of attempting redelivery. This replaces the costly and frustrating cycle of missed deliveries, redelivery attempts, and depot pickups.

Canopy Labs builds customer analytics software for small and medium-sized businesses, helping them track and optimize the buying journey for each customer. The platform lets marketing and sales teams build targeted campaigns and prioritize lead lists, replacing manual segmentation and guesswork. It serves a range of industries including online retail, ticket sales, sports, and daily deals.

Celery builds a pre-order and independent crowdfunding platform for product brands. Merchants use it to collect orders and payments before inventory exists, replacing one-off crowdfunding campaigns or patched-together checkout workarounds. It serves brands of all sizes that need to sell continuously, from early campaign through ongoing pre-sale and back-in-stock cycles.

ClassDojo connects K-8 teachers, students, and families through a shared communication platform, replacing fragmented channels like email, paper notes, and phone calls. Teachers post photos, videos, and updates to a private class feed, message families in over 190 languages, track social-emotional learning, and run classroom tools, all in one place. Products beyond the core app include a virtual learning world, a tutoring service, and a mindfulness and activities offering for kids.

Clever builds a centralized platform that connects K-12 schools to their digital learning applications. District administrators use it to automate student account provisioning and roster updates across software tools, replacing manual IT work. Teachers and students get single sign-on access to every application and resource, eliminating login friction in the classroom.

Coco Controller builds a physical, tactile game controller that attaches to mobile phones, giving players hardware buttons and controls in place of on-screen touch inputs. The product targets mobile gamers who find touchscreen controls inadequate for the games they play.

Coinbase builds a platform where consumers and merchants buy, sell, and manage digital currencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin. It replaces fragmented, technically demanding entry points into crypto with a single, retail-accessible interface. The product targets both everyday users and businesses that want to transact in digital currency without managing underlying infrastructure themselves.

Collections builds a unified content manager for consumers who store files and media across multiple cloud services and web apps. It pulls together content from services like Dropbox, Google Drive, Facebook, and Instagram alongside local files into a single interface, replacing the need to navigate each service separately. The product treats the web as a file system, giving users one place to access and organize their entire digital footprint.

Credictive builds attribution metatags for online content, letting publishers and advertisers tag digital content so that downstream engagement and conversions can be traced back to the original source. It targets B2B buyers in advertising and analytics who need to connect content performance to business outcomes, replacing manual tracking and guesswork with structured, machine-readable attribution data.

Crohnology (by Healthy Labs) builds a peer network and symptom-tracking platform for people living with Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. Patients log symptoms and health data that aggregates into a research-grade dataset, replacing fragmented self-tracking and giving academic, nonprofit, and pharmaceutical partners structured patient-reported evidence they would otherwise have to collect through traditional clinical channels.

DataNitro connects Excel to Python, letting analysts and developers pull data into spreadsheets, automate repetitive tasks, and run complex mathematical, statistical, and financial calculations without leaving Excel. It replaces manual data wrangling and custom VBA scripting with Python code that works directly inside the spreadsheet environment.

Double Robotics builds the Double 3, a self-driving, two-wheeled videoconferencing robot that gives remote workers and students a physical presence at their office or school. The robot lets a remote user navigate a space autonomously, see colleagues via pan-tilt-zoom cameras, and join spontaneous interactions without scheduling a call. It replaces the fixed, passive experience of a standard video call with an on-demand, roaming presence the remote user controls.

Dreamforge builds 3D modeling software aimed at making 3D printer users self-sufficient in designing their own objects. The software targets the consumer and prosumer end of the 3D printing market, replacing the need for complex professional CAD tools or outsourced design work.

Easel builds a visual design tool made specifically for the web. It targets web designers who have had to rely on print-era tools not built around web conventions or workflows. Easel replaces the workarounds designers use when desktop tools fail to match how the web actually works.

Eligible builds insurance billing APIs for healthcare businesses, giving developers programmatic access to the infrastructure needed to handle insurance claims and eligibility checks. It serves healthcare startups and large health systems alike, replacing manual billing workflows and fragmented payer integrations with a single, developer-friendly platform.

Everyday.me builds an automatic digital journal for consumers who want a lasting record of their daily life. It aggregates personal moments and memories into a continuously updated archive, replacing the manual effort of keeping a written or photo diary. The product handles the capture and storage so users accumulate a life record without active upkeep.

Filestack builds a file infrastructure API for web developers, handling every step from upload to transformation to delivery. Developers integrate it to give their users drag-and-drop uploads from 16-plus cloud sources, then run the files through image cropping, OCR, virus scanning, audio/video conversion, and CDN delivery, all without stitching together separate services. It replaces custom-built upload pipelines and a patchwork of third-party processing tools.

Flightfox combines software with a human expert support team to plan, book, and manage complex group and global travel for organizations. Its primary customers are educational institutions running study abroad programs, humanitarian organizations coordinating multi-origin trips, and companies arranging corporate offsites. It replaces the manual work of sourcing flights, hotels, and logistics across large, geographically dispersed groups.

Framebase gives developers a video API that turns video into a programmable object. Two lines of code replace the engineering work of building and maintaining transcoding pipelines, device compatibility layers, and CDN contracts. The target customer is any application developer who needs to ship video features without standing up a dedicated media infrastructure team.

Fullstack Academy trains adults to become software developers through intensive, in-person coding bootcamps built around a JavaScript-first curriculum covering Node.js, React, and MongoDB. It targets career-changers and aspiring engineers who want structured, immersive instruction rather than self-directed online learning. The program replaces a multi-year computer science degree with a condensed, project-based path to an entry-level engineering role.

FundersClub operates an online venture capital platform that connects accredited investors with vetted early-stage technology startups, starting at the seed stage. It built the first online VC model, replacing the traditionally closed, relationship-gated process of accessing startup deals. Portfolio companies include Coinbase, Instacart, GitLab, Flexport, and Rippling.

GetGoing builds a "transparent opaque" airfare and hotel booking platform for corporate and consumer travel. It serves Fortune 500 companies, travel management companies, airlines, hotel chains, incentive management firms, and online retailers with search, booking, and advertising tools. The product replaces fragmented, internally managed travel technology with an integrated solution so clients can focus on their core operations.

GoScale built a cloud infrastructure platform that handled elastic scaling and management of virtual machines for B2B customers. It automated the work of manually provisioning and resizing cloud servers, letting engineering teams run web-scale workloads without hand-tuning capacity. GoScale stopped trading in 2014.

Grid builds consumer products out of Mountain View and Honolulu. No further detail about the company's product, customers, or the work it replaces is available from public sources.

HealthSherpa builds a quoting and enrollment platform for ACA and Medicare health plans, serving insurance agents, brokers, agencies, and carriers. It replaces the slower, manual process of enrolling consumers through Healthcare.gov, cutting application time in half. Brokers use it to compare plans, complete applications, and manage their book of business in one place.

Hipset builds a release platform for musicians and video artists to publish new work to their audiences. It replaces ad-hoc distribution across social and streaming channels with a single, structured drop experience. Artists use it to control how and when new music and videos reach fans.

Hiptype builds an analytics and targeted advertising platform for eBook publishers. A plugin embedded in books collects reader demographic data and book performance data, replacing guesswork-based marketing with automated campaign optimization and in-book targeted ads. Publishers on major eBook platforms gain audience insight and ad targeting capabilities that those platforms do not natively provide.

Human Dx builds an open medical intelligence system that maps diagnostic pathways for any patient. The project combines input from clinicians worldwide with machine learning to produce a shared knowledge base that replaces fragmented, expertise-dependent diagnostic reasoning. The goal is to make accurate diagnosis available regardless of a patient's location or access to specialists.

Imgfave builds a consumer image-sharing community where users save and organize images into themed collections spanning categories like humor, art, photography, and fashion. It replaces ad-hoc bookmarking or scattered saves across social platforms with a single, browsable visual library. The audience is everyday consumers looking to discover and curate images around personal interests.

Instacart connects consumers in the U.S. and Canada with groceries and everyday essentials from local and chain stores, delivered the same day, often within an hour. Shoppers place orders through the app or website, and independent contractors pick and deliver the items. The service replaces the in-store shopping trip for busy households while giving retail partners a same-day fulfillment channel they do not have to build themselves.

Kamcord builds tools for capturing and sharing mobile screen activity. The company shipped a gameplay recording SDK embedded across hundreds of millions of devices, then a live streaming community for mobile gamers monetized through virtual goods, and later a social app for editing and distributing screenshots and screen recordings. Each product targets the gap between interesting things happening on a phone screen and a practical way to get that content to an audience.

Keychain Logistics builds a software marketplace that connects businesses shipping physical goods directly with independent semi-truck owner-operators. The platform tracks each truck's location and available capacity in real time, then matches loads to the right carrier automatically. This replaces the traditional freight brokerage middleman, cutting it out of the transaction entirely.

Kippt builds a collaborative bookmarking platform for professional teams. Employees save, organize, and search web content in a shared workspace, replacing ad hoc link-sharing over email or chat. Content saved to Kippt becomes readable across devices and visible to colleagues, letting teams build a collective knowledge base over time.

Knowmia builds a curated library of short video lessons from teachers across the country, matched to K-12 students by subject, learning style, and academic need. Students use it to get unstuck on hard topics, prep for tests, or get ahead in a new course, replacing the hunt through generic search results or the cost of a private tutor.

LeanMarket builds a self-serve mobile advertising platform for B2B advertisers. It uses real-time bidding to identify the highest-performing placements across mobile apps and websites, giving buyers up-to-the-second reporting on exactly where their ads run. The platform replaces the account-manager-mediated workflow typical of managed ad networks, putting campaign controls and optimization directly in the advertiser's hands.

Lever builds recruiting software for companies hiring at scale, combining an applicant tracking system and a candidate relationship manager into a single platform. Recruiters use it to post jobs, source and nurture candidates, schedule interviews, and generate offers, replacing a patchwork of disconnected tools and manual inbox work. Embedded AI surfaces candidate insights and automates follow-ups, screening steps, and scheduling so recruiting teams spend less time on administration.

Light Table/Eve builds developer tools centered on a next-generation interactive IDE and a broader programming environment aimed at making computation accessible beyond traditional developers. Light Table lets programmers edit live, running programs and embed visual output, such as web pages or games, directly in the coding environment. Eve extends that vision further, targeting people who have never written code, replacing the gap between ideas and working software with a more direct, human-readable approach to programming.

Markupwand converts Photoshop design files into clean HTML and CSS, then generates backend view templates through a short guided input flow. It targets backend developers who need to bridge the gap between a designer's PSD and a working front-end, replacing the manual process of hand-coding markup from static comps.

Mattermark builds a company intelligence platform that aggregates and organizes data on private companies and investors, covering over 80 fields including funding, headcount, web traffic, and media mentions. Sales teams and investors use it to source prospects, prioritize outreach, and track growth signals, replacing manual research and fragmented data gathering. It integrates directly with Salesforce and other tools to keep lead records enriched automatically.

Mattermost builds a self-hosted and cloud collaboration platform for technical and operational teams in high-security environments, including national defense agencies, large financial institutions, and government bodies worldwide. It delivers team messaging, file sharing, workflow automation, and project management on an open-source foundation, replacing general-purpose tools like Slack where data sovereignty and strict security controls are non-negotiable.

MicroEval builds performance review software for companies, replacing the traditional annual review process with a structured approach focused on employee development and skill growth. The product targets HR teams and managers who run employee evaluations, taking the place of ad hoc or paper-based review workflows that employees and managers alike find stressful and unproductive.

Mth Sense builds RevSense, a yield optimization platform for digital publishers running programmatic advertising. It aggregates performance data from ad servers and demand partners into a single reporting interface, then uses machine learning to adjust price floors, frequency caps, and other ad stack parameters in real time, replacing the manual work of ad operations teams. The platform also automates tag management and reporting, removing the need for human intervention to maintain and tune a publisher's ad stack around the clock.

Natero builds a customer success platform for B2B SaaS companies, combining predictive analytics, customer intelligence, and workflow management in one tool. Customer Success Managers use it to spot accounts at risk of churning, identify expansion opportunities, and handle larger account loads. It replaces manual tracking and siloed reporting with automated, data-driven prioritization.

NewsBlur builds a personal news reader that aggregates RSS feeds, web feeds, and email newsletters into a single interface. It targets individual readers who want to follow any publication or website outside of social media algorithms. The product replaces manual site-checking and fragmented feed readers with a unified, searchable archive and AI-assisted story analysis.

OctaveWealth builds and manages 401(k) plans for small businesses, handling plan design, payroll integration, employee enrollment, investment selection, and regulatory filings. It serves as both a 3(38) investment fiduciary and a 3(16) plan administrator, replacing the compliance, administrative, and portfolio management work that employers would otherwise manage themselves or hand off to traditional providers. Employees get personalized retirement projections and savings guidance directly in their accounts.

OmniVirt builds a 360-degree virtual reality advertising platform that connects brands with publishers across mobile, tablet, and web. Advertisers deliver immersive 360-degree ad experiences without requiring users to install an app or own a VR headset, replacing flat, static ad formats with interactive content accessible via a single tap. Publishers use the network to monetize inventory across more than 200 countries.

Parallel Universe builds a JVM-based server-side stack that lets developers write concurrent, scalable applications without restructuring their existing code or hiring dedicated scaling specialists. Its tools, including Quasar, Comsat, SpaceBase, and Galaxy, replace custom multi-threading work and third-party concurrency frameworks by providing lightweight threads, actors, fiber-aware web APIs, an in-memory spatial database, and an in-memory data grid. The target customer is backend developers who need to extract more throughput from modern multi-core hardware without adding servers.

Partnered runs a curated digital network that connects established brands with emerging tech companies to facilitate business development partnerships. It automates the matchmaking and outreach work that BD teams otherwise handle manually through cold introductions and relationship-building. The platform sits between large companies seeking new technology relationships and startups looking for enterprise partners.

Pixate built a mobile app prototyping tool for designers and developers, replacing the need to write production code just to test and iterate on native app interactions. Its core product embedded a CSS-based styling engine into iOS, letting teams style and animate apps at runtime without recompiling. Google acquired Pixate in 2015 and shut it down in 2016.

Plivo builds a platform for deploying voice AI agents across phone, SMS, WhatsApp, and chat. Businesses use it to staff roles like customer support, lead qualification, and marketing engagement with agents that handle live conversations end to end. It replaces human agents on repetitive, high-volume interactions such as appointment rescheduling, inbound support calls, and outreach.

Profig builds a cloud-based phone system for businesses, replacing traditional PBX and manual call management. It gives companies call tracking, voicemail transcription, and voice broadcasting alongside CRM integration, so teams handle inbound and outbound calling from a single managed interface.

Rainforest builds a no-code, AI-powered QA platform for growing SaaS companies. It creates, maintains, and runs end-to-end tests automatically, replacing manual testing cycles and the need for a dedicated QA team. Tests self-heal when the UI changes, integrate directly into CI/CD pipelines like GitHub Actions and CircleCI, and give product, dev, and QA teams shared visibility into coverage and failures.

ReelSurfer lets users clip short segments from videos across any website and share them with friends. It targets everyday consumers who want to surface and circulate the most relevant moments from online video, replacing the need to share full-length videos or rely on platform-native clipping tools. Over time, each user builds a personal library of saved clips that forms part of a broader social content network.

RegistryLove builds a unified wedding registry that pulls products and services from independent retailers, big-box stores, and experiential vendors into a single list. Couples register items from any source, including local shops and honeymoon activities, replacing the need to maintain separate registries across multiple retailers.

Scoutzie builds and ships MVPs for founders, taking a product from initial call to working software in two weeks. A YC-alum founder runs each project directly, handling scoping, cutting scope aggressively, building, and launching. The service replaces the slower, more diffuse process of hiring a design or dev agency and managing a spec-driven build.

SmartAsset builds a personal finance destination and advisor marketplace for retail consumers. The site delivers educational content, calculators, and tools covering mortgages, taxes, retirement, and investing, then routes interested consumers to matched fiduciary financial advisors through its SmartAsset AMP marketplace. The product replaces cold prospecting for advisors and unguided financial research for consumers.

Soylent makes nutritionally complete meal replacements, sold as ready-to-drink shakes, powders, and functional beverages, for people who want a fast, affordable, science-backed alternative to preparing conventional meals. Each product is formulated to deliver a full macronutrient and micronutrient profile, replacing the planning and preparation that a balanced meal would otherwise require.

Statwing builds web-based statistical analysis software for business users who need to interpret data without a background in statistics. It replaces tools like R and SPSS by presenting results in plain English rather than technical output, letting non-statisticians run and understand analyses on their own.

Streem built a cloud storage service for personal media, including movies, photos, and music. Files lived entirely in the cloud and were converted on the fly for any device or connection speed, replacing local storage and traditional sync-based tools. The company was acquired by Box in June 2014.

Study Edge builds and distributes customized video-based course content for middle school, high school, and college students, working directly with universities, state education agencies, and other institutions. The product replaces generic study materials with curriculum-specific video content delivered across web, mobile, and VR. Institutions partner with Study Edge to provide students with content tailored to their exact courses.

Submittable builds grant management and corporate social responsibility software for governments, corporations, foundations, nonprofits, and universities. It handles the full program lifecycle: accepting and reviewing applications, distributing funds, tracking outcomes, and reporting impact. It replaces manual intake processes, spreadsheet-based review workflows, and disconnected tools that organizations previously stitched together to run giving, scholarship, and community investment programs.

Svbtle builds a blogging and publishing platform for writers who want a distraction-free space to develop and share ideas. The platform replaces heavier content management systems with a stripped-down writing environment centered on how ideas take shape before they are ready to publish.

Tastemaker connects homeowners with professional interior decorators through an online marketplace, making design help accessible at a price point below traditional interior design services. It replaces the process of sourcing, vetting, and hiring a decorator independently, handling that work through a single platform that doubles as a retail destination for home furnishings.

Testmunk automates mobile app testing for developers who need to verify their apps across a wide range of Android and iOS devices and OS versions. It replaces the need to physically own, maintain, and upgrade a device library by running tests against a large pool of real, non-jailbroken hardware. Both native and hybrid apps are supported.

Thread builds a personal styling service for men that pairs each user with a human stylist and a proprietary algorithm. After a brief questionnaire and photo upload, the stylist curates outfits drawn from thousands of items, filtered to the user's sizes, budget, and taste. Thread replaces both the friction of high-street shopping and the paralysis of browsing open-ended online retail.

TomoGuides builds handcrafted iPhone travel guides for tourists who want curated local recommendations without a data connection. Each guide works offline and is available free, replacing the need to rely on roaming internet access or generic web searches while traveling. The product targets independent travelers who want practical, context-aware guidance rather than crowdsourced or algorithmically generated content.

Upwave builds a brand measurement platform for large enterprise marketers, covering channels from CTV and digital to linear TV, social, and streaming audio. It measures brand lift, validates audience reach, and surfaces budget optimization opportunities, replacing the guesswork and fragmented reporting that previously made it hard to quantify whether brand advertising changed consumer perception. The platform uses data science and machine learning to give brand teams a real-time view of campaign effectiveness across all their channels in one place.

Vastrm makes custom-fit active apparel for men, replacing the trial-and-error of shopping across multiple brands and sizes. Customers use a home try-on program to dial in their precise fit, and Vastrm produces shirts adjusted to their individual body measurements. The product eliminates the persistent gap between mass-produced standard sizing and how clothes actually fit real bodies.

Vayable connects travelers with locally led experiences and activities through a two-sided marketplace. Independent guides and local experts list tours, outings, and experiences; travelers browse and book directly. The platform replaces the generic packaged tours sold by traditional travel agencies with curated, firsthand access to a destination.

Viacycle builds low-cost bicycle sharing systems for communities underserved by existing transit infrastructure. The platform lets operators launch a bike-share program in days, replacing the lengthy, expensive deployments traditional bike-share vendors require. Customers get a turnkey system: the hardware, software, and logistics needed to run a public cycling network.

Virool builds a native video advertising platform that lets brand marketers distribute video content across publisher sites through programmatic targeting. Campaigns reach audiences defined by granular profile data, with placements embedded inline alongside editorial content rather than interrupting it. The platform replaces manual media buying and opaque reporting with real-time analytics, emotional response tracking, viewability guarantees, and fraud protection.

VoiceGem builds a B2B voice messaging platform that lets businesses send and receive voice messages in place of text-based communication. The product targets business teams needing a faster, more personal alternative to typed messaging.

Zapier builds a no-code workflow automation platform that connects over 9,000 business apps, letting small and mid-sized business teams automate repetitive cross-app tasks without writing code. It replaces manual data entry, copy-pasting between tools, and custom integration work that would otherwise fall to developers or ops staff.

Zentail builds multichannel ecommerce software for brands selling on Amazon, Walmart, Target Plus, and similar marketplaces. It centralizes product catalog management and automates the formatting, publishing, and syncing work required to list products across channels with different requirements. The platform replaces the manual effort of adapting listings, routing orders, and reconciling inventory across marketplaces.

ZeroMailer built a simplified mailing list tool for businesses, handling the setup and management work that email marketing typically requires. The company has since shut down.