Was the most recent class of startups incubated by Y Combinator the best group ever Thata4ぎa4г what Garry Tan told me, and he should know &8212' he was a YC alumnus through his simple blogging startup Posterous, and now hea4ぎa4г back at the famous incubator as designer-in-residence.
Ita4ぎa4г hard for me to fully endorse Tana4ぎa4г claim, since Ia4ぎa4m judging most of these companies on the barely-more-than-two-minute presentations they gave this afternoon at YCa4ぎa4г Demo Day. Plus, Ia4ぎa4ёe only been going to Demo Day since 2008, so I missed several years of startups. But I was impressed by the quality the companies today &8212' there were almost no head-scratching moments, which is particularly impressive, since Y Combinator expanded its Winter 2011 class to 43 companies. And there were enough cool companies that I had a hard time narrowing them down to a few favorites.
Nonetheless, here are the five standouts that I settled on highlighting. And by a4ぎAstandoutsa4ぎ I mean companies that I think wea4ぎa4ll be hearing a lot about in the future, based on some combination of attention-grabbing concept, products Ia4ぎa4d actually use, and who everyone else at Demo Day seemed to be talking about. (I also had to leave out some of my favorite companies since they haven&'t launched yet.)
And here&'s a list of the other startups that demonstrated today, many of them quite cool, along with short descriptions (from the companies). Again, these don&'t include the demonstrators who are still in stealth mode.
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Companies: Convore, DrChrono, Grubwithus, Lanyrd, Noteleaf, Y Combinator
People: Garry Tan
Companies: Convore, DrChrono, Grubwithus, Lanyrd, Noteleaf, Y Combinator
People: Garry Tan
Anthony is a senior editor at VentureBeat, as well as its reporter on media, advertising, and social networks. Before joining the site in 2008, Anthony worked at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing. He attended Stanford University and now lives in San Francisco. Reach him at anthony@venturebeat.com. (All story pitches should also be sent to tips@venturebeat.com) You can also follow Anthony on Twitter.
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