“YC commonly accepts startups that are building similar or nearly identical products to previous YC grads.”
Deckmatch went through nearly 5,000 YC companies and found more than a dozen AI code editors funded from 2022 to 2024, some in the same batch with the same partner. Garry Tan championed police tech startups Flock Safety in 2017 and Abel Police in 2024. YC says it invests in founders over ideas. When you own a slice of every competitor, it doesn’t matter which clone wins.