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Y Combinator's W25 and S25 cohorts show a historic tilt toward vertical agents and developer tools, with outcome-based pricing emerging as a new model. I break down the visible patterns, the business models on display, and what founders operating outside Silicon Valley should copy from this reading of the batch.
The venture capital market in 2024 has partially recovered, but the improvement is uneven. Generative AI absorbs 35-40% of capital while consumer and DTC remain slow. Due diligence timelines have tripled, the burn multiple now dominates investor conversations, and a serious raise takes three to six months from first pitch to close.
Useful startup metrics are the data points that let you evaluate a company's real performance: general performance metrics (MRR, retention, churn), area KPIs (CAC, LTV, NPS), and the AARRR framework, always prioritising retention and the LTV:CAC ratio over vanity metrics.
