Y Combinator has funded 6,012 companies. Techstars has funded approximately 3,800. Both take equity for cash + mentorship, but the shape of each program is very different. Here's the numeric comparison.
| Y Combinator | Techstars | |
|---|---|---|
| Companies funded | 6,012 | ~3,800 |
| Batches per year | 2–4 (Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall) | 20+ (per-city programs) |
| Avg companies per batch | 120 | ~10 |
| Standard deal | $500k for ~7% (2024 terms) | $120k for 6% |
| Public exits | 23 | Fewer, no single-source count |
| Acquisitions | 794 | Hundreds (portfolio-wide) |
| Failure rate (this dataset) | 17.4% | Not comparably tracked |
YC concentrates capital and network effects: bigger checks, denser alumni network, higher visibility for demo day. Techstars trades scale for local presence — cities like Boulder, Boston, London, and Berlin each get their own program with local mentors and corporate partners. Founders raising primarily from US Tier-1 VCs still pattern-match harder on YC; founders building for enterprise verticals or non-US markets often get more mileage from a Techstars program aligned with their vertical.
YC numbers on this page (6,012 companies, 50 batches, 17.4% failure rate) are computed live from the public Y Combinator directory. Techstars numbers are pulled from Techstars' public "portfolio" page and Crunchbase and are approximate.
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