
Startups that launched today at Y Combinator’s W18 Demo Day - marlonbarz
https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/19/here-are-64-startups-that-launched-today-at-y-combinators-w18-demo-day/
======
hoodoof
Voicery and Storyline are the two that connect with my interests.

I think Voicery does itself a disservice by featuring a "pick the human voice
versus pick our machine voice" demo quiz on their website. I got 100%, and it
led me to emotionally response "they have failed", but in fact the voice
sounded great.

A more useful demo would have been to hear a range of different voices and be
able to put my own text in and hear it read back.

But it is not the point that a machine voice can be determined versus a human
voice. The important question is "does the machine voice sound good enough".

Instead, their marketing approach has forced me to make a comparison in which
my conclusion was that they tech "lost" in some sort of contest.

~~~
bambax
Reading your comment I just tried and also got 100%. There are more micro-
pitch variations, vibrato and harmonics in the human voice; the robot voice
kind of sounds the same, but on some short sounds sometimes produces a kind of
monocord sound that is not only non-human, but probably impossible for a human
to imitate.

It seems some people are more sensitive than others to robot-sounding or
robot-looking. I have a very hard time watching modern movies because most
special effects completely ruin the experience for me; but other people seem
to not mind at all.

------
jgh
California Dreamin' sounds pretty cool, I wonder how it tastes. I like the
choice to do 10mg because it's enough for a decent buzz. It would be good if
they did a 5mg version too, then you could have 2 or 3 without it getting too
intense. If their target market is people drinking alcohol I imagine that
being able to have more than one in a sitting will be important.

~~~
telesilla
What's driving impairment like, after this amount?

~~~
jgh
I'm not sure, I guess it depends on the person. For me 10mg is enough to give
me a pretty good buzz and be satisfied with watching anime for the night.
20-25mg and I'm time traveling. I wouldn't drive on either amount. 5mg is
probably _okay_ but still I'd rather just take a cab/lyft/uber/transit.

I think if they could do three things (other than be in my jurisdiction which
is currently complicated by laws) I would be an avid customer:

1) Make it taste pretty good with food

2) Make it fizzy

3) Make it not terrible for you (vs soda, juice, alcohol) so you could have a
couple at the end of the day / with dinner to de-stress.

------
the-dude
"Correlia Biosystems is able to analyze microsamples of blood"

This sounds familiar ...

~~~
toufka
It's a shame Theranos poisoned the well so badly. There's a lot of good work
to be done in the space. But that kind of science just cannot be done by
hyper-secretive overfunded outsiders. For the good of us all, try not to let
Theranos drag down an entire kind of company - but in that, be critical of
science, credentials, and data.

And though science is still hard, signals from the NSF, QB3, Berkeley, UCSF,
MIT and Cornell all point towards a much different culture and kind of company
than was to be found in Theranos.

~~~
ganeshkrishnan
I am out of the loop. What's with Theranos ?

~~~
grzm
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos#Controversy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos#Controversy)

Most recently, in particular:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos#SEC_fraud_charge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos#SEC_fraud_charge)

------
wcchandler
This is an excellent list. YC will do very nicely with this batch. Modern
agriculture is about shift hard and a few of these companies will go far even
if they look to be "failures."

    
    
      - Bear Flag Robotics
    
      - Macromoltek
    
      - Culture Robotics
    
      - AesculaTech
    
      - Reverie Labs
    
      - Ovipost
    

I can see all of these being positively impacted. I just hope they can
capitalize off it in some fashion. Definitely follow these companies for a
while.

------
kookiekrak
Congrats to OpenSea! [https://opensea.io/](https://opensea.io/)

They're one of the best crypto asset exchanges around.

Crypto Racing League is excited to finish integration with them soon!
[http://cryptoracingleague.io/](http://cryptoracingleague.io/)

------
lettergram
Here's demo day #2: [https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/20/these-are-
the-64-startups-...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/20/these-are-
the-64-startups-unveiled-at-y-combinator-w18-demo-day-2/)

~~~
starlord97
Really exciting to see a bunch of startups trying to tackle hard problems like
trying to find treatments/cures to cancer

------
btown
Sourcify is a really interesting outlier. From their case studies they seem
like a (barely) tech-enabled service firm that puts real domain-expert human
consulting _effort_ behind every customer query for sourcing manufacturers.
This is something where costs scale linearly (unlike software), but when the
alternative is an opaque industry where only insiders can find good
information regardless of price, a “low-tech” startup can still win by being a
brand known to give this access at reasonable but linearly-scaling-sustainable
prices. Democratization, not virality, is the key. Silicon Valley would do
well to look closer at other firms with similar business models. Software
isn’t the only way to make money and satisfy a B2B need.

~~~
ikeboy
They're pricing significantly higher than e.g. importdojo with less supplier
relationships. I don't see what they're doing that justifies something like a
3X premium over incumbents.

------
gitgud
So many startups... am looking forward to track their progress using
[http://yclist.com/](http://yclist.com/)

It would be interesting to analyse the categories of startups that succeed and
fail.

~~~
milansuk
This reminded me YC
World([http://world.ycombinator.com](http://world.ycombinator.com)), which
probably needs little update.

------
stingrae
> "Reverie Labs uses machine learning to scan public molecule research, modify
> and develop its own molecules, and license the drugs they create to big
> pharmaceutical companies. The startup claims it can sell molecule licenses
> for $100 million, and has already signed a milestone deal worth up to $87
> million."

I wonder if this is really molecular innovation or does it result in
derivative work from a machine learning algorithm pattern matching human
successes.

------
telesilla
Safety Wing caught my eye
([https://www.safetywing.com](https://www.safetywing.com)), but I've been
using the same provider for years and would be hesitant to switch for only $30
extra a month, then worry I'd be getting lesser coverage. Does anyone have any
experience with Safety Wing, or comments? Reading the coverage document is one
of those things I think you need a medical or law degree for..

~~~
AYBABTME
Same thing, it seems it would be simpler for me than using WorldNomads. I
don't really know where I'll be next more than a 2-3 weeks ahead, and every
time I finalize my next couple legs and head somewhere new, I need to apply
for a new policy with WorldNomads. Also WorldNomads can be pretty expensive,
sometimes it's a bit of a turn off. But I sort of trust that they'll cover me
since they cater to "extreme" activities, so I still go with them.

Wondering what sort of coverage SafetyWing will do and their policy is way too
long and opaque for me to make sense of. If they could have something that's
like "You can go canyoneering/scuba diving/mountain biking" like WorldNomads
does, and add to this "anywhere in the world with a subscription and we'll
cover you for x$/month", I'd be sold. Even if it's the same price as
WorldNomads in the end, just for the convenience.

~~~
AYBABTME
Follow up: since it seems to be rather cheap and why not try it? I'm trying to
sign up and the password policy is a bit scary/suggests that the passwords are
not stored properly:

    
    
        Password contains invalid characters (^, {, >, ?, >, ;)
    

Something that should be addressed I think. Devil's in the detail and this
makes me wonder how my data will be secured on your servers.

[edit] well after sign up, it seems there's no way to get coverage and maybe
the product isn't yet working. I guess this is really early days. =P

------
contingencies
_Beanstalk is an indoor farming startup that grows produce at the cost of
outdoor farming._

Sure about that? With no details at all on the website, I will believe this
guy first, who in late 2015 estimated USD$400,000 worth of solar energy per
acre of land from outdoor growing.
[https://youtu.be/ISAKc9gpGjw?t=13m26s](https://youtu.be/ISAKc9gpGjw?t=13m26s)
[https://youtu.be/ISAKc9gpGjw?t=21m17s](https://youtu.be/ISAKc9gpGjw?t=21m17s)

------
giarc
Veriff really caught my attention. I've had to scan the front and then the
back of my drivers license a bunch of times and send the jpeg into a company
for verification. Doing it all on a phone would be great.

------
Uhhrrr
There are a lot of interesting ones here, but Sheerly Genius is the one where
the founders will either make a billion dollars or perish in a mysterious
accident.

~~~
postsantum
Why?

~~~
ngokevin
The pantyhose mafia.

------
mgkimsal
Lots to look at, but one that caught my eye was evryhealth. Health insurance,
and they're talking to... employers. Employer-provided health insurance is a
huge barrier to personal mobility. Might it not have been better to try to
tackle the personal market, and help grow that, vs just moving $ around the
employer-provided insurance market?

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Group health insurance is where all the good risks are, which is why it is
cheaper in general than much riskier individual policies. Obama care was
basically doomed when they didn’t eliminate the group market like Switzerland
did.

~~~
pjmorris
Seems like the larger the group the better the overall risk profile. Which
seems to me like an argument for single payer.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Well, it depends how the group is defined. Group insurance: educated (they got
a job that provides benefits), probably better health. Individual market:
everyone else. So if the group is defined as left overs from healthy pickings,
it can really suck even if it is very big.

Switzerland eliminated the group markets, so everyone buys in the individual
market even if they don’t have single payer.

------
odammit
Excited to see repl.it on the list. Congrats!

~~~
maxencecornet
Yeah same ! I use it everyday, such a nice tool

------
eleitl
Don't see Nectome mentioned.

Ah, there it is [https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/20/these-are-
the-64-startups-...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/20/these-are-
the-64-startups-unveiled-at-y-combinator-w18-demo-day-2/)

------
tonystubblebine
I've worked with and talked to the Molly team. I think they are on track to do
something really interesting in the AI space and bring a particular human
sensibility that seems to be missing in other AIs that I interact with. If
anyone is going to build the AI from Her, it's this team.

------
hoodoof
Kinda weird that there's 141 companies in the batch and only 3 of them listed
in "Show HN".

~~~
ngokevin
YC companies go up as "Launch HN".

------
chatmasta
Veriff looks like a great product but also seems to compete with checkr,
another YC company. Is it common for YC to invest in competitors of existing
portfolio companies?

------
wslh
Does SafetyWing covers health insurance for families on vacation? It says it
is targeted to digital nomads but I wonder how this is different than a
vacation insurance.

~~~
cylinder
Travel insurance, now with hip fonts!

------
rajeevk
Curious, how many startups does a YC batch have?

~~~
ngokevin
141 this batch. There's some detailed info in the article.

------
fastball
Am I the only one that thinks "a social network for women (Leap)" is a bit
sexist?

~~~
jameslevy
Sexist because men aren't welcome? While it would be the case that a social
network for men could be considered sexist and maybe this represents a double
standard, I'm sure there is a very good argument for why networks like Leap
aren't sexist, just as there are good arguments for why pro-diversity hiring
policies are not necessarily racist.

~~~
racer-v
I'm sure there are too, I just can't think of any.

~~~
drewbuschhorn
I'll bite. At their heart, all antidiscrimination laws are based on the idea
of equalizing power.

The law doesn't care if people with one set of genitals doesn't want to hang
out with people of another set. What it is concerned about is if a given group
has significant power to prevent another group from pursuing life, lib, and
happiness.

Viewed from that angle, it becomes clear why antidiscrimination laws favoring
AA in traditionally Cauc challenges are legal, but the reverse would not be
true.

[https://www.acacamps.org/resource-library/campline/single-
ge...](https://www.acacamps.org/resource-library/campline/single-gender-camps-
hiring-employees-gender-appropriate-hiring-criterion)

Note that, for example, Hooters Rest. lost a discrimination case against males
on the grounds that the hiring criteria was unfairly weighted (power applied)
towards women (given their ostensible marketing strategy).

~~~
racer-v
_if a given group has significant power to prevent another group from pursuing
life, lib, and happiness.

Viewed from that angle, it becomes clear why antidiscrimination laws favoring
AA in traditionally Cauc challenges are legal_

I'm not sure it's a good idea to enshrine the idea that "Cauc" have an
inherent power over "AA" into law. This seems close to running afoul of Equal
Protection.

------
ikeboy
>Correlia Biosystems

Theranos but real?

------
bgentry
dupe of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16626054](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16626054)

~~~
detaro
No discussion and few points, so not a duplicate

