Often, when I tell someone that our company, Ginzametrics, has received funding from both Y Combinator and 500 Startups, they are surprised.
This is partly because both funds run an accelerator program that lasts three months and ends with a demo day. At Y Combinator, that's how all of the companies they fund participate in the portfolio. At 500 Startups, however, they do both accelerator investments and traditional investments in companies they want to have in their portfolio. So we went through the Y Combinator program in the Summer of 2010 and have received funding from 500 Startups but did not participate in the 500 Startups accelerator program. To my knowledge, there are a dozen or so other Y Combinator startups that have also received investment from 500 Startups, none of whom participated in the accelerator.
So, our initial experience with 500 Startups is different than those startups that have gone through their accelerator program and I can't comment on that directly (although I will provide some arms-length commentary below). I can, however, comment directly to how 500 Startups works for companies in their portfolio as a whole. I'll explain the funding process for both groups and then talk about some interesting cultural and organizational differences.
To read the full, original article click on this link: VatorNews - How Y Combinator and 500 Startups are different
