My YC Demo Day Observations

Diversity, Globalization, Innovation

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I decided to do a quick writeup of my 10,000ft observations on YC Demo day.

There seems to be some aftermath of the pandemic that has fueled innovation. The pandemic has, as we all know, put pressure on selected industries - e.g., healthcare, education, manufacturing/supply chain to mention a few. The pressure has led to bottlenecks ready for disruption. The pandemic has also led to new human interaction needs.

In no particular order, below are some of the areas that had more than one startup presenting:

• New ways to onboard people, engage with customers, reach the market

• There were more than a few startups addressing manufacturing, distribution, and autonomous systems in trucks and fleet vehicles.

• Interest in “from home consumption” be it medical services, plant shopping, personalized fashion looks, food and food delivery, or fan experiences

• In the health-tech space, there was a variety from data analytics, testing and treating methods, systems to help scale medical staff and processes, speed up testing and home testing, etc. 

• Not surprisingly, there was a lot about remote education, accessible education for underserved areas, as well as talent and recruiting products

• Financial accounting as a service and democratization of investing - a la “we are the robin hood for X” where X is either a geographical region or a people segmentation (e.g., Gen Z, sustainable/conscious investing, etc.)

My favorite topics (see previous blogs) were also represented, of course:

• DevOps

• Supportability

• Cloud and infra optimization

• Automation and process optimization tools

The surprising elements for me were the food tech candidates - e.g., food making robots, companies manufacturing marbled steaks or bison flavored ones; amazing innovation! I also must give a lot of kudos to the female CEO presenting a sensual audible service for middle aged Asian women. I think the world has come a long way suddenly! 

What stuck out the most to me this year was the significant representation by startups made in India, for Indian market and startups made in Latin America, for the Latin American market. I love globalization! Glad to also see Nigeria, Norway, Sweden, and the Philippines represented too among other countries. Innovation happens everywhere, and with the experience and aftereffects of a pandemic perhaps it is time for more global thinking for both VCs and startups.