[ { "id": 169, "name": "OrderAhead", "slug": "orderahead", "former_names": [], "small_logo_thumb_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/small_logos/e334d62bafa0332695cbf9c8cdda90c9f097a691.png", "website": "https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/orderahead", "all_locations": "San Francisco, CA, USA", "long_description": "OrderAhead is a mobile ordering and payments company that enables millions of users to order pickup from thousands of local merchants.", "one_liner": "Order ahead for pickup", "team_size": 50, "industry": "Consumer", "subindustry": "Consumer -> Food and Beverage", "launched_at": 1326789995, "tags": [ "Cashierless Checkout", "Marketplace", "Payments" ], "tags_highlighted": [], "top_company": false, "isHiring": false, "nonprofit": false, "batch": "Winter 2011", "status": "Acquired", "industries": [ "Consumer", "Food and Beverage" ], "regions": [ "United States of America", "America / Canada" ], "stage": "Early", "app_video_public": false, "demo_day_video_public": false, "app_answers": null, "question_answers": null, "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/orderahead", "api": "https://devasheeshg.github.io/yc-api/batches/winter-2011/orderahead.json", "year_founded": 2012, "city": "San Francisco", "country": "US", "linkedin_url": "", "x_url": "", "fb_url": null, "cb_url": "https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/orderahead", "github_url": null, "logo_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/small_logos/e334d62bafa0332695cbf9c8cdda90c9f097a691.png", "app_video_url": null, "dday_video_url": null, "company_photos": [], "primary_partner": null, "founders": [ { "user_id": 33963, "full_name": "Jeffrey Byun", "title": "Founder/CEO", "founder_bio": "2x YC founder (W11, P26), CEO of Akkari, and former bond trader. Previously scaled OrderAhead (acq by Square) to millions of users and BLADE to $1.2B+ in monthly trading volume.\n\n", "is_active": false, "linkedin_url": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffbyun/", "x_url": "https://twitter.com/jeffbyun", "avatar_thumb_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/avatars/5c9c9037a39cec5d8edeed5c93314652b04c5653.jpg" }, { "user_id": 5717, "full_name": "Henry A. Lee", "title": "Founder/CTO/Head of Engineering", "founder_bio": "Co-founder at Akkari; 2x YC; Stanford CS. Built OrderAhead (W11, acq by Square) to millions of users and thousands of merchants, then scaled BLADE, a crypto derivatives exchange to >$1.2B monthly trading volume.", "is_active": false, "linkedin_url": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/henryalee/", "x_url": "", "avatar_thumb_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/avatars/0283ff74918631ba490d323dfd7b940ae73b5f25.jpg" }, { "user_id": 55560, "full_name": "Ruddick Lawrence", "title": "Founder/CTO", "founder_bio": "", "is_active": false, "linkedin_url": "", "x_url": "", "avatar_thumb_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/avatars/3edcda6c15e2df75e891f88a97f9865221f6a06c.jpg" } ], "jobs": [], "news": [], "launches": [] }, { "id": 856, "name": "Mashgin", "slug": "mashgin", "former_names": [], "small_logo_thumb_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/small_logos/bd7ff2b3db9bbbc82a79afababdad873d16b6e54.png", "website": "http://mashgin.com", "all_locations": "San Francisco, CA, USA", "long_description": "Mashgin creates better retail experiences through visual automation. \r\n\r\nWe’ve built a self-checkout kiosk that uses computer vision to scan multiple items without barcodes, reducing checkout time by 10x. We’re completely recreating the checkout experience in an industry that’s had little innovation in decades.\r\n\r\nOur clients see dramatic reductions in lines and revenue increases of as much as 400% as a result.", "one_liner": "Self-Checkout using Computer Vision.", "team_size": 150, "industry": "B2B", "subindustry": "B2B -> Retail", "launched_at": 1421189374, "tags": [ "Cashierless Checkout", "Deep Learning", "Hardware", "Computer Vision", "AI" ], "tags_highlighted": [], "top_company": false, "isHiring": true, "nonprofit": false, "batch": "Winter 2015", "status": "Active", "industries": [ "B2B", "Retail" ], "regions": [ "United States of America", "America / Canada", "Remote", "Partly Remote" ], "stage": "Growth", "app_video_public": false, "demo_day_video_public": false, "app_answers": null, "question_answers": [ { "question": "How did your company get started? (i.e., How did the founders meet? How did you come up with the idea? How did you decide to be a founder?)", "answer": "Back in the early 2010s, Mukul was hard at work helping Toyota determine how computers could use cameras to interpret and interact with the world. But Mukul had a problem - every day, he would go to get his lunch, and every day he’d spend most of that time (30-40 minutes) waiting in line in his corporate cafeteria. He decided to take a closer look at the issue and decided that computer vision could be the answer. After some initial testing, Mukul felt the idea was a big opportunity and flew to California to pitch his idea.There he reconnected with Abhinai, who was his classmate in the same dorm at IIT Delhi. He created an early demo that was so impressive that it convinced Abhinai to join him.Having worked in large companies and created some enormously successful projects, we were disheartened by the fact that when a project became successful, several people came in at the final stages to take credit. We decided to be founders and create a company that valued people’s contributions honestly and cut through the corporate bullshit.After successfully cold-calling head executives from some of the largest corporate cafeteria operators on the planet, we received many enthusiastic responses to our description of Mashgin’s Touchless Checkout System. He then set out to actually build it.After successfully building and demoing a Mashgin prototype to the YC team, Mashgin went from “project” to “company” over the course of the Winter 15 Batch." }, { "question": "How did you decide to apply to Y Combinator? What was your experience applying, going through the batch, and fundraising at demo day?", "answer": "We applied to YC very late, just a few days before the start of W15 batch. We were in the middle of raising a seed round and through our suboptimal interactions with investors, we realized that we needed YC guidance to help us raise a round on good terms. Our YC experience was amazing, if a bit overwhelming at times. YC partners forced us to think clearly about the next steps. At one point they had us go door to door to every business in Mountain View downtown to try and sell our product. We made our first sale that day and we’ll never forget that experience! Fundraising post YC was every bit what we imagined it to be. It made the entire process super smooth and easy." }, { "question": "What's the history of your company from getting started until the present day? What were the big inflection points?", "answer": "When we started the company in 2014, our initial goal was to improve the checkout experience in corporate dining facilities, cafeterias, and sports stadiums. We aimed to use computer vision and machine learning technology to create a much more efficient and convenient experience for customers. Entering YC and getting to demo day with a major letter of intent was a big moment for the company, giving us the experience and fundraising to make Mashgin market-ready over the following few years.However, with the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020 and the subsequent lockdowns, we had to pivot our focus to the convenience store space as corporate offices closed and retail demand for self-checkout solutions skyrocketed.During the pandemic we were able to secure an enormous deal with Circle K, one of the largest convenience store chains in the world, for 10,000 kiosks across their global portfolio of stores. This elevated us from a burgeoning player in AI to the most market-tested solution in the world.In May 2022, we were able to announce a Series B funding round of $62.5 million with a valuation of $1.5 billion, earning us the title of “unicorn” company. The round was led by NEA, a global venture capital firm that’s invested in other successful startups like Cloudflare, Patreon Plaid, and Robinhood, with additional support from our existing investor, Matrix Partners.Today Mashgin continues to expand within the convenience, sports, and corporate dining industries while beginning to explore adjacent opportunities in spaces like ski resorts, quick service restaurants, and drug stores." }, { "question": "What is the core problem you are solving? Why is this a big problem? What made you decide to work on it?", "answer": "Online retail has gone through several iterations in the past few decades and the experience today is extremely frictionless. Physical retail on the other hand has not seen the same level of innovation and the experience hasn’t changed much since the early 90s. We want to use the latest advances in AI and Computer Vision to make physical retail as easy and frictionless as online retail.More specifically, Mashgin solves the problem of long wait times and checkout bottlenecks. Customers often experience frustration and dissatisfaction when they have to wait in long lines to check out, and retailers also face the challenge of managing and staffing checkouts. This is a big problem because lines are a waste of time for everyone involved. Over the course of a lifetime, the average person will spend years waiting in lines. And those lines aren’t just wasted time for consumers, they result in lost sales for retailers. Studies by Forrester and BlueDot have shown that retailers lose as much as 57% of their sales when customers perceive the line as long (which in a convenience store is 3 people).Besides being frustrated by our own lunch lines, we decided to work on this problem because we saw an opportunity to use computer vision and machine learning to create a more efficient and convenient shopping experience for customers across industries." }, { "question": "What is your long-term vision? If you truly succeed, what will be different about the world?", "answer": "At Mashgin, our long-term vision is to create a world where the shopping experience is completely seamless and frictionless. If we succeed, waiting in line to purchase goods will be a thing of the past. Consumers will have more time to do the things that they love with a faster, more convenient, and less stressful experience in retail and dining spaces.  For retailers and concessionaires the technology will free up time and resources, allowing them to focus staff on other key areas of the business like stocking, cooking, cleaning, and customer service." } ], "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/mashgin", "api": "https://devasheeshg.github.io/yc-api/batches/winter-2015/mashgin.json", "year_founded": 2014, "city": "San Francisco", "country": "US", "linkedin_url": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/mashgin/", "x_url": "https://twitter.com/mashgin", "fb_url": "https://www.facebook.com/mashgin/", "cb_url": "https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/mashgin", "github_url": "https://github.com/mashgin", "logo_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/small_logos/bd7ff2b3db9bbbc82a79afababdad873d16b6e54.png", "app_video_url": null, "dday_video_url": null, "company_photos": [], "primary_partner": { "name": "Brad Flora", "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/people/brad-flora" }, "founders": [ { "user_id": 34574, "full_name": "Abhinai Srivastava", "title": "Founder/CEO", "founder_bio": "", "is_active": true, "linkedin_url": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/abhinai", "x_url": "", "avatar_thumb_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/avatars/14f887ad32b47d2b93bdee84edcd76e3e94995fe.jpg" }, { "user_id": 37288, "full_name": "Mukul Dhankhar", "title": "Founder", "founder_bio": null, "is_active": true, "linkedin_url": "https://linkedin.com/in/mdhankhar", "x_url": null, "avatar_thumb_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/avatars/39c2431da93e70eca62fac474dd89d47cc1d756c.jpg" } ], "jobs": [ { "id": 49134, "title": "Senior Software Engineer, Full-Stack", "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/mashgin/jobs/BaWLmBF-senior-software-engineer-full-stack", "location": "Palo Alto, CA", "type": "Full-time", "role": "Engineering", "role_type": "Full stack", "salary_range": "", "equity_range": "", "experience": "6+ years", "visa": "US citizen/visa only", "skills": [] }, { "id": 49135, "title": "Software Engineer, Computer Vision and Deep Learning", "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/mashgin/jobs/Lwg6Tpa-software-engineer-computer-vision-and-deep-learning", "location": "Palo Alto, CA", "type": "Full-time", "role": "Engineering", "role_type": "Full stack", "salary_range": "", "equity_range": "", "experience": "6+ years", "visa": "US citizen/visa only", "skills": [] }, { "id": 64562, "title": "Senior Technical Product Manager", "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/mashgin/jobs/o1C6SdM-senior-technical-product-manager", "location": "Palo Alto, CA, US", "type": "Full-time", "role": "Product", "role_type": null, "salary_range": "$180K - $230K", "equity_range": "", "experience": "6+ years", "visa": "Will sponsor", "skills": [] }, { "id": 67554, "title": "Senior Software Engineer, Backend", "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/mashgin/jobs/kOoM7gQ-senior-software-engineer-backend", "location": "Palo Alto, CA", "type": "Full-time", "role": "Engineering", "role_type": "Backend", "salary_range": "$225K - $350K", "equity_range": "", "experience": "6+ years", "visa": "US citizen/visa only", "skills": [] } ], "news": [ { "title": "Mashgin Hits $1.5 Billion Valuation With AI-Powered Self-Checkout System", "url": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/rashishrivastava/2022/05/09/mashgin-hits-15-billion-valuation-with-ai-powered-self-checkout-system/?sh=4a389369176a", "date": "May 09, 2022" } ], "launches": [] }, { "id": 1058, "name": "Caper", "slug": "caper", "former_names": [ "QueueHop" ], "small_logo_thumb_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/small_logos/45034c22d81491a4e49c2c46c3c822d2d820941d.png", "website": "https://www.caper.ai/", "all_locations": "", "long_description": "Caper focuses on compacting Amazon-Go's technology (image recognition, sensor fusion and artificial intelligence) into a smart shopping cart, allowing each shopper to throw her groceries into the cart and self-checkout without cashiers. The technology is looking to fundamentally transform physical retail and rapidly scale into existing grocery stores.", "one_liner": "Plug-and-play cashier-less retail powered by computer vision and AI", "team_size": 15, "industry": "B2B", "subindustry": "B2B -> Retail", "launched_at": 1447654816, "tags": [ "Cashierless Checkout", "Computer Vision", "Retail Tech", "AI" ], "tags_highlighted": [], "top_company": true, "isHiring": false, "nonprofit": false, "batch": "Winter 2016", "status": "Acquired", "industries": [ "B2B", "Retail" ], "regions": [ "Unspecified" ], "stage": "Growth", "app_video_public": false, "demo_day_video_public": false, "app_answers": null, "question_answers": null, "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/caper", "api": "https://devasheeshg.github.io/yc-api/batches/winter-2016/caper.json", "year_founded": null, "city": null, "country": null, "linkedin_url": "", "x_url": "", "fb_url": null, "cb_url": "https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/queuehop", "github_url": null, "logo_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/small_logos/45034c22d81491a4e49c2c46c3c822d2d820941d.png", "app_video_url": null, "dday_video_url": null, "company_photos": [], "primary_partner": null, "founders": [ { "user_id": 100960, "full_name": "Lindon Gao", "title": "Founder/CEO", "founder_bio": null, "is_active": true, "linkedin_url": "https://www.linkedin.com/pub/lindon-gao/24/b31/1a1", "x_url": null, "avatar_thumb_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/avatars/c40089129c492ef81f3aff1d4c8eda1b0bfbddc3.jpg" }, { "user_id": 102516, "full_name": "Ahmed Beshry", "title": "Founder", "founder_bio": "-", "is_active": true, "linkedin_url": "https://ca.linkedin.com/in/ahmedbeshry", "x_url": null, "avatar_thumb_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/avatars/e06e54bed5d7514764bf77a2c529f2666de9a2f4.jpg" }, { "user_id": 111205, "full_name": "Yilin Huang", "title": "Founder", "founder_bio": null, "is_active": true, "linkedin_url": null, "x_url": null, "avatar_thumb_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/avatars/0fbe46f3ffbe20ed44ca1a12fd25b81ee1bc1fa9.jpg" } ], "jobs": [], "news": [ { "title": "Instacart acquires Caper AI, a smart cart and instant checkout startup, for $350M, as it moves deeper into physical retail tech – TechCrunch", "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/19/instacart-acquires-caper-ai-a-smart-cart-and-instant-checkout-startup-for-350m-as-it-moves-deeper-into-physical-retail-tech/", "date": "Oct 19, 2021" } ], "launches": [] }, { "id": 1912, "name": "Inokyo", "slug": "inokyo", "former_names": [], "small_logo_thumb_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/small_logos/dc7d9010a87027e6273b47d80643278ca2e03619.png", "website": "https://www.inokyo.com", "all_locations": "San Francisco, CA, USA", "long_description": "", "one_liner": "We bring physical stores to the digital age with cashierless checkout.", "team_size": 10, "industry": "B2B", "subindustry": "B2B -> Retail", "launched_at": 1524708162, "tags": [ "Cashierless Checkout", "Retail Tech" ], "tags_highlighted": [], "top_company": false, "isHiring": false, "nonprofit": false, "batch": "Summer 2018", "status": "Inactive", "industries": [ "B2B", "Retail" ], "regions": [ "United States of America", "America / Canada" ], "stage": "Early", "app_video_public": false, "demo_day_video_public": false, "app_answers": null, "question_answers": null, "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/inokyo", "api": "https://devasheeshg.github.io/yc-api/batches/summer-2018/inokyo.json", "year_founded": null, "city": "San Francisco", "country": "US", "linkedin_url": "", "x_url": "", "fb_url": null, "cb_url": "https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/inokyo", "github_url": null, "logo_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/small_logos/dc7d9010a87027e6273b47d80643278ca2e03619.png", "app_video_url": null, "dday_video_url": null, "company_photos": [], "primary_partner": null, "founders": [ { "user_id": 251860, "full_name": "Tony Francis", "title": "Founder/CEO", "founder_bio": "Tony is a second-time YC founder. Currently, he is the founder & CEO of Dream3D building generative models to simulate virtual worlds. His previous company, Inokyo, built the first AI-checkout retail stores. In between, he lead the development of the ML platform at Clubhouse. ", "is_active": true, "linkedin_url": "http://linkedin.com/in/tony-f", "x_url": "https://twitter.com/_tonyfrancis", "avatar_thumb_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/avatars/f5122876a10bca071b9861a58e57029896a31f68.jpg" } ], "jobs": [], "news": [], "launches": [] }, { "id": 25665, "name": "Wibond", "slug": "wibond", "former_names": [], "small_logo_thumb_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/small_logos/3f8aca33bbbc7f098e6884aaf05d63f57bdae220.png", "website": "https://www.wibond.co/", "all_locations": "Córdoba, Cordoba, Argentina", "long_description": "Under \"Buy Now, Pay Later\" business model, Wibond is a 100% flexible digital payment method enabling the 200 million underbanked consumers without credit cards to shop online for the first time. \r\n\r\nWe integrate directly into the purchase flow of online merchants, and we offer consumers a credit, when they have already made up their mind that they want to acquire a specific product.\r\nWe provide financial and digital access to a large community of people offering payment options according to their possibilities and profile. Wibond is an inclusive and simple solution:\r\n - Consumers can create their free account to quickly access and pay without banks, in installments, and without a card.\r\n - Merchants with e-commerce channels increase their sales and integrate Wibond in a very agile way by offering a new form of payment and expanding their markets.\r\n\r\nWe’re also integrated in the purchase flow of more than 500 merchants, including Samsung, Musimundo (one of the Biggest retailers in LATAM) , and Motorola. And up to 65% of the payment transactions on these sites go through us. \r\n", "one_liner": "Affirm for LATAM ", "team_size": 30, "industry": "Fintech", "subindustry": "Fintech -> Credit and Lending", "launched_at": 1641208676, "tags": [ "Banking as a Service", "Cashierless Checkout", "Fintech" ], "tags_highlighted": [], "top_company": false, "isHiring": false, "nonprofit": false, "batch": "Winter 2022", "status": "Active", "industries": [ "Fintech", "Credit and Lending" ], "regions": [ "Argentina", "Latin America", "Remote", "Partly Remote" ], "stage": "Early", "app_video_public": false, "demo_day_video_public": false, "app_answers": null, "question_answers": null, "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/wibond", "api": "https://devasheeshg.github.io/yc-api/batches/winter-2022/wibond.json", "year_founded": 2020, "city": "Córdoba", "country": "AR", "linkedin_url": "", "x_url": "", "fb_url": null, "cb_url": null, "github_url": null, "logo_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/small_logos/3f8aca33bbbc7f098e6884aaf05d63f57bdae220.png", "app_video_url": null, "dday_video_url": null, "company_photos": [], "primary_partner": { "name": "Diana Hu", "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/people/diana-hu" }, "founders": [ { "user_id": 75218, "full_name": "Ezequiel Bucai", "title": "Founder", "founder_bio": "I studied Business Administration and Public Accountant. In 2013, with Alejandro Silvestre and Gonzalo Conde, created ClickyPass: a platform where users get access to a network of more than 2,500 gyms and sports centers located in 30 cities in Argentina, Mexico and Chile. Then Classpass, the US Unicorn, acquire Clickypass.\n", "is_active": true, "linkedin_url": "https://ar.linkedin.com/pub/ezequiel-bucai/28/2a3/294/es", "x_url": "https://twitter.com/piojo.bucai", "avatar_thumb_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/avatars/4e7f4aa148fa0cb5e2def708019e8e530c525280.jpg" }, { "user_id": 853744, "full_name": "Lucrecia Porta", "title": "Founder", "founder_bio": "I am one of Wibond´s cofounders, and member of the board. Additionally, I am the Finance Director in Porta Hnos, a 140 years B-corp family company. I have always been in Financial Corporate area, working in JPMorgan as well.\n\n", "is_active": true, "linkedin_url": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucrecia-porta", "x_url": "https://twitter.com/lucreporta", "avatar_thumb_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/avatars/4694b760a30c9180a57c7bdb336241c70c2b9ce0.jpg" } ], "jobs": [], "news": [], "launches": [] } ]