Tech Talents #10 - Y Combinator Summer 24 Special Edition
From AI Agents to Data Centers in space, here are some of the trends I identified from YC's most recent demo day (plus LatAm tech talent movements)...
Welcome to the tenth edition of Tech Talents!
In this newsletter, I share real-time key talent movements in the LatAm tech ecosystem, including founders entering and exiting stealth mode, executive-level movements in unicorns, and partner-level changes in local VC firms.
Before we dive in, I wanted to share some trends I noticed while watching Y Combinator’s Summer 2024 (YC S24) Demo Day last week. Feel free to skip to this week’s LatAm talent movements if you prefer.
YC S24 featured 243 startups pitching to thousands of investors and industry insiders via a Zoom webinar and a live demo day website over two days of event. Each presenting company had one minute to pitch with one slide containing a few highlight bullet points and founders' descriptions.
YC demo day is not only a great source of dealflow for early stage investors but also a good way of getting a feel for what is hot in Silicon Valley. Below, I will share some of the trends and themes I noticed during the event.
This edition of Tech Talents is brought to you by BZCP.
Bronstein, Zilberberg, Chueiri & Potenza Advogados advises investors in their investment rounds and also in exit events and M&A, in addition to assisting startups from their creation through all stages of development, helping to solve complex legal matters.
Trends at YC S24
This marked YC’s 39th batch and, according to Garry Tan, YC’s President, the last fully online demo day. The accelerator will now hold four fully in-person batches per year, instead of its usual two annual batches, but expects to maintain the total number of companies that go through the program per year.
As expected, AI was extremely prevalent throughout the demo day, with almost 80% of the group using AI to some capacity. Even though the most popular AI category was the application layer (companies using existing LLMs and infrastructure to build B2B and B2C apps), there were also some companies innovating in the infrastructure (chips and data centers) and data layers (developer tools and observability platforms).
Agents For… Everything
As many investors have already discussed, we are currently moving away from Copilots (AI assisting people in work) and going into the Agents (AI doing the work entirely, without people’s input) age in AI. The astonishing number of founders building agents in this batch is strong evidence that this trend is real.
Some examples:
AI Reignites E-commerce
E-commerce seems to have fallen out of investors’ taste, with funding for this industry dropping significantly in previous quarters. AI appears to be reigniting founder interest in this sector, given the clear benefits the technology can bring to this industry.
Some examples:
Picks And Shovels For AI
“During a gold rush, sell shovels”. This phrase explains NVIDIA’s success in the public markets well, and many founders seem to be trying to follow the same principle. There are many startups in the recent batch trying to build new AI chips for training LLMs, novel ways of housing data centers, and many other core AI infrastructure components with different specialties.
Some examples:
Devin AI Look-alikes
Coding was one of the earliest and most logical applications for Generative AI. We’ve seen the massive adoption of GitHub Copilot, the viral video of Devin AI (the first AI software engineer), and many other startups building coding copilots and agents. Many founders continue to see a lot of opportunities in this space, especially when we consider how many such companies were in the most recent batch.
Some examples:
Other Cool Startups
Here are a few other startups that are completely outside the traditional software space (and thus my area of expertise) but that I found interesting and worth sharing:
Evolvere BioSciences: Making Next-Generation Antibiotics that Outpace Bacterial Evolution
Mineflow: Mineflow predicts the shape and location of mineral deposits
About Y Combinator
Y Combinator is the most renowned startup accelerator in the world. Since 2005, they have invested in over 5,000 startups, some of which have become household names such as Brex, Airbnb, Stripe, Dropbox, and Coinbase.
YC traditionally hosted two batches of startups per year but is now moving to four batches per year. This means they select four groups of companies every year to participate in their program, which takes around 3 months each.
During this period, the selected startups have office hours, participate in speaker sessions, and attend meetups with experts in different business areas, founders of successful startups, investors, executives, and others. Every startup also has its own Group Partner who selects the company, works with them throughout the batch, and supports the founders for the life of their company.
Essentially, YC helps startups go from an idea to an actual business.
One of YC’s biggest value adds is helping startups attract potential investors to their business. Throughout the program, founders are instructed on how to formulate their pitch and storytelling so it is more appealing to investors. Finally, at the end of every batch, they present this pitch in around 1 minute to thousands of investors during the demo day.
S24 Stats
The acceptance rate for this batch, much like the previous ones, was less than 1%, meaning they had over 24,000 applications with 243 startups selected and pitching. Out of the selected ones, they can be broken down into the following categories (non-exclusive):
Machine Learning / AI: 193 (79%)
B2B: 188 (77%)
SaaS: 157 (65%)
Developer Tools: 63 (26%)
Fintech: 38 (16%)
Other: Hard Tech 33 (14%); Healthcare / Biotech 31 (13%); Consumer 27 (11%); Hardware 20 (8%); E-commerce 13 (5%); Marketplace 10 (4%); Social 4 (2%); Education 3 (1%)
In terms of market location:
US / World: 230 (95%)
Europe: 39 (16%)
Canada: 11 (5%)
Latin America: 9 (4%)
Other: Emerging Markets 8 (3%); India 6 (2%); SE Asia 6 (2%); Middle East & North Africa 3 (1%); Africa: 1 (0%)
In terms of diversity:
Black-Founded: 14 (6%)
Hispanic & Latino-Founded: 21 (9%)
Women-Founded: 37 (15%)
🤫 Talents Entering Stealth
Talents with relevant experiences who have just entered stealth mode.
Carlos Moura - Building something new at Stealth Startup
Founder Highlights: Serial Founder, Investor, Previous Exit
Previous Experience: Ex-Chief Marketing Officer at Conta Simples, ex-Chief Product Officer at B2B Stack, ex-Ideator of Superlógica Xperience, ex-Founder of Happy Hour Comunicação, ex-Founder and Editor at Jornal Semana 3. Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Campinas graduate in Journalism.
Ask for an Intro: Click here
Headquarters: São Paulo
Time in Current Position: 1 month
Teófanes Oliveira - CEO, Co-Founder at Stealth Fintech Startup
Founder Highlights: Investor, Top University
Previous Experience: Ex-Investment Professional at Clave Capital, ex-Investment Professional at H.I.G. Capital, ex-Investment Professional at Patria Investments. Stanford Ignite graduate, Universidade Estadual de Campinas Civil Engineering graduate.
Ask for an Intro: Click here
Headquarters: São Paulo
Time in Current Position: 6 months
Elena Castillo - Co-Founder & COO at Stealth Startup | Finance
Founder Highlights: Unicorn Experience
Previous Experience: Ex-Head of Customer Success at Cobee, ex-Head of Client Success at minu, ex-Key Account Manager at Gympass, ex-Key Account Executive at Marketec, ex-Customer Service at Marketec. Education from Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas, Universidad Europea, and Universidad Iberoamericana, Ciudad de México.
Ask for an Intro: Click here
Headquarters: Mexico
Time in Current Position: 4 months
Bruna Keiserman - Building Talisman AI at Stealth Startup
Founder Highlights: Ex-Big Tech, Ex-Consultant, Masters, Serial Founder
Previous Experience: Ex-COO at Trybe, ex-Founder and COO at Mimic, ex-Country Manager for Twitch Brazil at Amazon, ex-Consultant at Boston Consulting Group, ex-Consumer Engagement LATAM Manager at Nokia, Northwestern University - Kellogg MBA, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul MSc in Marketing Strategy, BA in Business.
Ask for an Intro: Click here
Headquarters: São Paulo
Time in Current Position: 1 month
Fernanda Santos - Founder at Stealth Startup
Founder Highlights: Serial Founder, Technical Founder, Masters, Ex-Big Tech, Antler
Previous Experience: Ex-Entrepreneur in Residence at Antler Brasil, ex-Co-Founder at Gulf Capital Partners, ex-Chief Operating Officer at Millbody, ex-Product Owner at XP Investimentos, ex-Senior Software Engineer at Itaú Unibanco, Master's degree from Université des Sciences et Technologies de Lille, Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from FEI.
Ask for an Intro: Click here
Headquarters: São Paulo
Time in Current Position: 9 months
🦄 Unicorn Movements
Promotions, new hires, and other movements in local unicorns’ executive-level.
Andre Penha
Current Role: CEO at IBBX
Previous Role: Co-founder & CTO at QuintoAndar
Previous Experience: Ex-Managing Partner at Tectoy Digital, ex-Director at Abragames, ex-Founder at Overplay, ex-MBA Intern at Sony Computer Entertainment America, ex-Undergraduate Intern at Bosch, Stanford MBA, MSc in Computer Science from Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Computer Engineering degree from Universidade Estadual de Campinas.
Headquarters: São Paulo
Time in New Role: 1 month
Roberta Giusti Romera
Current Role: Operations Strategy Manager at QuintoAndar
Previous Role: Business Operations Manager at MUSA
Previous Experience: Ex-Chief Of Staff to CEO at Legiti, ex-Senior Business Analyst at Wildlife Studios, ex-Business Analyst at McKinsey & Company, Bachelor's Degree in Law from Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie.
Headquarters: São Paulo
Time in New Role: 1 month
Guilherme Major
Current Role: Chief Financial Officer at Wildlife Studios
Previous Role: Head of People at Wildlife Studios
Previous Experience: Ex-Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Company, ex-International Accelerator Associate at Sente Advisory Services, ex-Head of Business Development at Infracommerce. MBA from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Bachelor of Engineering from ITA.
Headquarters: São Paulo
Time in New Role: 9 months
João Moreira
Current Role: Director of Business Operations - For Sale BU at QuintoAndar
Previous Role: Head of For Sale BU at QuintoAndar
Previous Experience: Ex-Senior Manager at Bain & Company, ex-Co-Founder at Plural Education, ex-Automation Engineer at IHM Engenharia e Sistemas de Automação Ltda, Columbia MBA.
Headquarters: São Paulo
Time in New Role: 3 months
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