

Ask PG: Do you ever fund startups outside of normal Y Comb. funding cycles? - jlgosse

Hey Paul,<p>In the case that someone were to run a startup in the months leading up to Christmas, has there ever been a situation where Y Combinator has provided funding to a startup outside of the "normal" funding cycles?<p>I ask this for two simple reasons:<p>1. A friend and I are going to be working on our own startup coming this fall, in this case potential funding MAY be needed before the Winter Y Combinator session starts.<p>2. Neither of us can really relocate to California at this time. It has potential in the future, but not for this coming winter.<p>If PG doesn't have any insight into something like this, does anyone else have information pertaining to something like this?<p>Thanks a lot.<p>EDIT: Since everyone seems to think that we are looking for funding right now, I will clear things up by saying that no, we are not looking for any funding at this point in time.
======
pg
A couple times, but in those cases we already knew the people.

------
agotterer
YC isnt the only investors around. I obviously can't speak for PG, but from my
understanding of YC the program is run twice a year on the same schedule. I
have never heard of a YC company starting earlier, especially since they
haven't had the chance to review all the applications and potential
candidates.

PG may make personal investments outside of YC, but then you lose access to
the program. There are many other routes you can go for fund raising...
Angels, normal VCs, bootstrap consulting or one of the other programs similar
to YC. Those programs may fit your schedule and geographic location better.

~~~
jlgosse
I know about the paths available, and all of them are all very viable options
for us in the future. I was mostly just wondering if it ever happens outside
of the normal funding rounds.

We will probably be looking for some sort of funding in the future, and it
will probably be through angels or VCs. At this point however, we haven't even
really started on much outside of brainstorming and early design, so we won't
be worrying about anything like funding yet.

------
kaiserama
I assume you know this already, but you can apply for a session even if you've
already started a project. If you're nervous about starting a project because
of needing money you should either do what agotterer suggested in fund
raising, or just start your project on the side and keep day jobs until you
can apply.

I can't speak for PG either but I would assume the chances that he'd fund you
outside of a session aren't going to be any higher than during the lead up to
a session, if anything the chances may go down.

Anyway, good luck!

------
Keyframe
I'm interested in one other thing - does anyone know if any VC (YC or not)
'fund' startups that don't need money at all - but only connections and advice
in exchange for a percentage?

~~~
pg
Yes, this is common. Many of the people we fund don't need the money. And e.g.
the founders of Friendfeed and Twitter didn't need the money either.

~~~
netsp
Is it normal (not necessarily within YC, I'm speaking generally) for them to
either accept money regardless in order to get the associated benefits (even
if these include help raising larger sums later) or come to some non cash
exchange?

------
iamelgringo
I've been following PG and YC for years, and I've never heard of a single
instance of them taking equity in a company that they didn't fund. I've also
never heard of them doing a funding round (or what you're describing) outside
of YC. I've also never heard of them getting involved with a startup that
wasn't close to Boston, or now, Silicon Valley.

