A startup is designed to grow fast, and the best metric to gauge that growth is revenue. After all, you make what you measure. And in today's uncertain economic climate, when prudence around fundraising and valuations make sense, it’s especially worth shining a light on revenue as the clearest signal of a startup’s success.
Today we’re publishing a list that recognizes the companies in the YC community that achieved the highest net revenue throughout 2022, presented in alphabetical order. Congratulations to everyone on the inaugural YC Top Companies List by Revenue!
Why publish this list? Because as we put it together for our own use, we were amazed by its variety. For aspiring founders, we hope these companies — representing many verticals, locations, and stages of growth — inspire you to pursue your vision. Despite the fiscal landscape, now is a great time to start a startup — and as this list shows, tremendous startups can come in many, many forms.
As revenue is confidential for most of these companies, we’re not exposing the specific revenue amounts — likewise, companies are listed in alphabetical order. The companies featured have all generated above a certain threshold of net revenue in 2022 and submitted audited financials reflecting 2022 full year net revenue (not GMV, sales, or ARR).1
Here are stats about the companies on the list:
- The total revenue generated by these companies in 2022 is more than $50B
- The companies have collectively raised $40B; they are collectively valued at $400B
- Each company on the list is valued at more than $150M
- 15 companies (30%) have had an exit, with 12 of those being publicly traded
- Together, these 50 companies employ over 70k people
- 74% have remote working options for employees
- 70% have an office in the Bay Area
- 22% have an office outside of the United States
- The vast majority of these companies were founded by 2 (55%) or 3 (32%) co-founders
- The three companies on the list that most recently went through YC are Whatnot (W20), Deel (W19), and Nowports (W19)
- The S12 batch appears most frequently on the list with Benchling, Coinbase, Instacart, SmartAsset, and Zapier
- The W12, W14, and W15 batches appear second most frequently on the list with four companies each
- 6 sectors are represented, including:
- B2B software and services (50%)
- Consumer (22%)
- Financial technology and services (18%)
- Healthcare (6%)
- Industrials (2%)
- Real estate and construction (2%)
1 For companies that were acquired, we collected revenue associated only with the legacy business that Y Combinator originally funded. Only companies that have maintained their standalone P&Ls were considered for the list. We have not performed any calculations to estimate revenue that should be allocated to the acquired startups.
Originally published on Y Combinator : Original article