Y Combinator, a US startup accelerator that offers seed funding to a wide range of startups, released the list of its top companies by valuation as of January 2021.
The list was put together to help potential employees, partners and late-stage investors get to know a wider set of YC companies.
Flutterwave, valued at $150 million, is the only African startup featured on the list and as Y Combinator’s most valuable startup in Africa.
Over the years, we have seen more Nigerian startups like Paystack, Buycoins, Cowrywise amongst others get into the accelerator program.
- Since launching in 2005, YC has invested in more than 2,000 startups around the world – investing between $125k-$150k for a 7% equity.
- The accelerator now has more than 125 companies valued at $150M+ and more than 25 at $1B+
- The number of global startups on YC’s list is 134 and Flutterwave ranked 115 with Airbnb, DoorDash, and Stripe being top of the list.
According to Y Combinator,
- “Valuation is the most commonly available metric to compare companies in the startup world. Other metrics, like revenue, are more often kept private. It’s worth noting that we have several impressive companies who would appear on the list or rank even higher if we counted other metrics.”
Another Nigerian fintech missing from the list is Paystack. Despite getting acquired by fellow Y Combinator alumni, Stripe, for $200million – a figure higher than Flutterwave’s $150million.
Y Combinator added,
- “For top exits, we counted only the money that went to the cap table at the time of acquisition. We did not include retention bonuses or the value founders and investors received from an acquiring company’s stock post-liquidation event.”
The accelerator also noted that this is not an exhaustive list as it allowed some alumni startups to opt out of being listed for any reason. This might be the case for the six-year-old startup, Paystack.
What to expect
As more African startups backed by YC raise funding this year, the YC list will likely feature more than 1 African startup next year.
