LEAD Competitors

Y Combinator is the leading startup accelerator for entrepreneurs. Since 2005, YC has invested in over 5,400 companies, including Airbnb, Dropbox, Stripe, Reddit, Instacart, DoorDash, and Coinbase. Today, YC has built the most powerful startup community in the world alongside the products and programs to support founders for the life of their company.

Bessemer Venture Partners helps entrepreneurs lay strong foundations from inception to build long-standing companies. With more than 150 IPOs and 420-plus portfolio companies across industries, Bessemer supports founders and CEOs from seed through every stage of growth. Bessemer has backed industry defining companies including Anthropic, Abridge, Canva, LinkedIn, Perplexity, Pinterest, RocketLab, Shopify, ServiceTitan, Toast, and Twilio, and has $19 billion of assets under management. Bessemer invests globally, with investment teams located in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, New York, Boston, London, Bangalore, and Tel Aviv. Born from innovations in steel more than a century ago, Bessemer’s storied history has afforded its partners the opportunity to celebrate and scrutinize its best investment decisions (see Memos) and also learn from its mistakes (see Anti-Portfolio).

GV supports innovative founders across multiple stages and sectors, from artificial intelligence and life sciences to consumer platforms, enterprise software, and frontier technology. Launched as Google Ventures in 2009, GV oversees more than $10 billion in assets under management. Our operating partners support founding teams at every stage of company-building across executive talent, design, communications, and marketing. GV is a non-strategic venture capital firm that invests independently from its sole limited partner, Alphabet. We connect startups with Google and Alphabet companies, providing unique access to the world’s best technology and talent. GV has 400 active portfolio companies spanning North America, Europe, and Israel. Our portfolio includes Lightmatter, Stripe, Treeline Biosciences, Vercel, and Wonder, with notable exits including Uber, Nest, Slack, GitLab, Duo Security, Flatiron Health, Lemonade, and One Medical. The firm is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, with offices in Cambridge, New York, and London.