The second half of Y Combinator’s Winter 2024 cohort rolled out on Thursday, once again bringing dozens and dozens of new startups before a swath of the venture investing community. Like us did it on wednesdaySeveral members of the TechCrunch team watched the entire series of presentations and picked a few favorites to highlight.
Enjoy our favorites from the second round of Y Combintor demos while we head out to pick up a few more cups of coffee. Work!
TechCrunch Staff Favorites
atopile
- What are you doing: Allows electrical engineers to design circuit boards using code
- Why it’s a favorite: Much of the electrical engineering work on circuit boards is done using GUIs. Who knows? Not this writer, which is why Atopile immediately piqued my interest. The startup, co-founded by Matt Wildoer, Timothée Peter, and Narayan Powderly, aims to bring design reuse, version control, and automation to hardware design, aspects that the trio say are seriously missing from existing design tools. . Instead of forcing electrical engineers to draw schematics by hand and validate every small change on test benches, Atopile captures a product’s requirements using a custom programming language and builds and validates manufacturing files from there. necessary. Skilled.
- Who chose: kyle
scribble
- What are you doing: A platform for veterinarians to carry out their practices.
- Why it’s a favorite: So platforms for running veterinary businesses are not new, as I discovered after a cursory Google search (or a few). BUT, Scritch co-founders Claire Lee and Rachel Lee say what sets them apart is their heavy reliance on automation. Scritch handles scheduling, billing, and clinical workflows, as well as inventory management and care coordination. Additionally, the platform helps veterinary clients file insurance claims on their behalf, which sounds like a very attractive feature for this potential pet owner.
- Who chose: kyle
Flashlight
- What are you doing: Postgres Vector Search Tool
- Why it’s a favorite: If you cover the world of AI, you’ll have heard of vectors. there are companies like semi that they have raised a lot of capital for your own open source vector database software, for example. Lantern sells a Postgres vector database hosted on its own Lantern Cloud. Your argument: Your product is cheaper than a similar offering from AWS. Continuing my search for startups that could make a lot of money from the rise of AI, I add Lantern to the list.
- Who chose it: Alex
Paradigm
- What are you doing: AI agents for task automation
- Why it’s a favorite: There has been a lot of talk about using AI to replace workers who perform repetitive tasks. More interesting in the short term are artificial intelligence tools that help those same workers do more and faster. That’s what Paradigm is building for marketing and sales marketplace use cases, with a human engagement angle. I’ve spent enough time with business development representatives and account executives to know that the market for this technology could be huge.
- Who chose it: Alex
Just words
- What are you doing: GenAI to help companies write better
- Why it’s a favorite: When Just Words founder Neha Mittal worked at Twitter and Pinterest, she found that minor word changes in user-facing communications had a big impact on engagement rates. That matches what I’ve learned from writing online. The startup’s plan to provide a similar kind of boost to customers may prove popular; I chose it as a favorite because it fits perfectly into a theme I’ve noticed since the rise of ChatGPT and similar services: people hate typing. They don’t want to do it! So tools that help people not write will be important.
- Who chose it: Alex
Pythagoras
- What are you doing: Create and refine apps based on text prompts
- Why it’s a favorite: I love two things about this. Firstly, it has $47,000 (564,000 ARR) worth of monthly recurring revenue from 140 customers in less than a quarter. That’s a lot, quickly. And second, because of the way it describes an interactive approach to app development, where you answer questions and then code what you have in mind. I’m downloading Visual Studio to try this out, but the concept itself is very appealing to me, someone who hasn’t really written code since high school. (Later in the day, marbleism shared a related speech that I would be remiss if I didn’t include it here).
- Who chose it: Alex
CommoditiesAI
- What are you doing: AI-based shipping management for commodities trading
- Why it’s a favorite: Commodity trading involves cross-border communication, strict compliance with import laws and a lot of paperwork. CommodityAI’s mission—putting all the invoices and paperwork involved in commodity trading online and adding a layer of collaboration—makes a lot of sense. This seems like a big improvement over parties having to call each other in other countries to verify numbers and data on paper documents, if they can find them.
- Who chose: scholarship
copy
- What are you doing: Partners with clothing retailers to allow shoppers to try on clothes virtually
- Why it’s a favorite: I don’t love buying clothes online because it’s hard to predict how clothes will look on my body and shipping packages back is a pain. Kopia wants to help consumers visualize how clothes will look on them by wearing an avatar that mimics the person’s body type. Other startups have tried the idea of a virtual fitting room, but I haven’t seen these tools available on shopping sites yet. Will Kopia’s product spark interest from retailers? It’s hard to say, but I hope they or another company notices because I sure need a wardrobe update.
- Who chose: small port
Time care
- What are you doing: More accurate weather data thanks to low-cost flat satellites
- Why it’s a favorite: Getting the weather forecasts right is incredibly important because inclement weather can impact people, structures and supply chains. I really like that this company is not only trying to make weather forecasts more accurate, but is doing it by building less expensive satellites. The company says its technology is 17 times more accurate at predicting climate outcomes than existing systems, a lofty claim. Even if it’s not as accurate as the startup claims, I’m a fan of anything that helps me better predict when the basement of my building will flood.
- Who chose: scholarship
medium
- What are you doing: infrastructure for card issuer processing and core banking for businesses in sub-Saharan Africa
- Why it’s a favorite: Technology for sub-Saharan Africa is not something you often hear about in the startup world; Technology for B2B companies located in that region is even less common. Building fintech infrastructure so that companies can issue cards, or even just file expense reports, seems like a smart foundation for the company to gain customers and then expand into other fintech products. The technology Miden is building is clearly in demand: the startup said it is already profitable and is seeing strong traction so far.
- Who chose: scholarship
oma care
- What are you doing: Helps pay family caregivers.
- Why it’s a favorite: The caregiving market is growing and there is a huge opportunity (and demand) to make such a daunting experience flow a little easier. I liked this app because there have been studies showing that caregiving tasks more often fall to women, as they are more than twice as likely to be caregivers compared to men. In most cases, they are not paid for it, adding to the statistic that women’s unpaid work globally is worth more than 10 billion dollars. I welcome anything that attempts to address this issue and am excited to see more innovation in this space.
- Who chose it: Sun
Garage
- What are you doing: Used fire fighting equipment market
- Why it’s a favorite: This is such a great idea! Equipping a firefighter is a a couple thousand dollars, so it seems smart to create a way for these departments to get equipment without spending a lot of money. This is especially true considering that you don’t want budget concerns to prevent fire stations from providing their firefighters with the safest equipment. Sometimes good ideas for technology aren’t complicated.
- Who chose: scholarship
Point one
- What are you doing: Time Tracking and Billing with Al Technology for Lawyers
- Why is it a favorite: PointOne co-founder Adrian Parlow, who was previously a lawyer at Fenwick & West, says one of the worst parts of being a lawyer is having to track time in six-minute increments. I’m not a lawyer or a paralegal, but I imagine that calculating how many fractions of an hour each client received is tedious and time-consuming. PointOne says advances in artificial intelligence can automate timesheet generation by capturing work performed on lawyers’ and laptops. I am a big fan of all the applications that reduce the intense work of professionals. Can anyone calculate this for filing fees?
- who chose: Leisure port, sports port