Startups come in all flavors. Boring but important. Provocative but frivolous. Even eye-roll inducing. They're all vying for our attention, and there were definitely a handful that piqued our intrigue this week at Y Combinator's Demo Day. The twice-yearly event is also a good gauge of emerging trends in the startup scene due to the sheer volume of companies presenting.
For example, we learned that real estate technology is hot — not just in North America. Half a dozen startups were focused on buying, selling, managing and building property in Latin America.
And fintech is steadily becoming more infused with web3, blockchain, NFTs and cryptocurrency products, particularly in North America. Of the 28 startups self-identifying with one or more of those keywords, 18 are based in the U.S. with six in San Francisco, four in New York, two in Salt Lake City, two in Miami, two in Los Angeles and one each in Boston and Washington State.
Another trend? Startups named after fruits, vegetables and legumes:
- Avocademy (Miami) — online part-time education to help people get UX/UI jobs.
- Azuki (SF) — a subscription service for Japanese Manga comics with an ad-supported fremium tier.
- Bananas (Indonesia) — a 10-minute grocery delivery service.
- Pina (Indonesia) — personal investing and money management.
- Spinach (Atlanta) — tools for more collaborative Zoom meetings.
Here are some of the other intriguing startups we noticed:
Consumer goods and food:
- Mooji Meat (Baltimore) — 3D printing for plant-based and cell-cultivated meats to make alternative proteins look, feel and taste more like the real thing.
- Olympian Motors (Los Angeles) — Electric "James Bond"-style cars that will begin deliveries in late 2022.
- Re-mint (SF) — a marketplace for fashion brands to resell secondhand clothing directly to consumers.
Creator economy and social:
- Winno (SF) — a subscription text message platform for creators to monetize followers.
- Discz Music (New York) — a social network geared towards Gen Z that's built around discovering and sharing music.
Finance and investing:
- Amal Invest (Abu Dhabi) — a platform for Muslims that screens for halal investments.
- Pigeon Loans (Miami) — a platform for creating loan contracts between friends and family members.
- Yunit (Oakland): an investing platform that allows users to invest in groups with a social aspect.
Health and biotech:
- Rosebud Biosciences (San Carlos): enabling new drug development by testing drugs on micro-organs that have the same genetic mutations as patients.
- RTHM (Redwood City) — a telehealth platform for patients with long Covid symptoms.
- Uh-Oh Labs (Santa Clara) — fast PCR quality home tests for Covid-19 that will start shipping in April.
Materials and sustainability:
- AstroForge (Huntington Beach) — mining asteroids for valuable elements.
- Impossible Mining (San Jose) — building underwater electric vehicles to responsibly collect seabed metals for battery production.
- AirMyne (Berkeley) — removing carbon dioxide from the air at an industrial scale.
- Alga Biosciences (SF) — Modifying kelp to make cattle feed more efficient, save farmers money and prevent cows from burping methane.
Productivity:
- LifeAt (Seattle) — a website with video backgrounds to entertain or provide escapism while you work.
Real estate:
- HomeRoom (San Jose) — a platform for real estate investors that makes it easier to rent out individual rooms.
Software and video:
- Andi (Miami) — a new search engine that says it's better than Google.
- Reality Defender (New York) — a no-code platform to scan for and detect deepfakes.
Web3:
- Cashmere (SF) — a crypto wallet for web3 organizations built on Solana that will have multi-chain support.
- Courtyard (SF) — creating infrastructure for NFTs that are backed by physical assets.
- NFT Scoring (New York) — a platform for finding and trading NFTs.
