Y Combinator’s email mistake hands 15,000 tech startups lifeline

Global accelerator, Y Combinator (YC) has handed automatic selection to 15,000 tech startups after it mistakenly sent acceptance emails to many applicants who it previously did not have a place for. The company also incurs $150 million equity-free grants to the selected startups.

The Startup School is a free, ten weeks online course designed by Y Combinator to help startup founders navigate the earliest, most difficult challenges. The 2018 edition is the first time participating startups will be giving $10,000 in equity-free funding. Usually, the final selection process comes down to 100 of the most promising companies which will receive the $10,000. Last year, 38 of the startups were accepted to the core Y Combinator program and received YC funding.

“As most of you already know we screwed up and sent acceptances to companies that were not actually accepted to Startup School,” a Y Combinator team wrote in a statement on the company’s website. “We’ve decided to use this error as an opportunity to try something new: we’re going to let in every company that applied to Startup School.”

The announcement leaves the combinatory with something knotty issues such as assigning its limited number of advisors to the 15,000 startups. In addition to having full access to all lectures and class hours, participating startups are assigned an advisor who is usually a member of the YC alumni network. The advisory process also takes place online, in the form of Group Office Hours, every week via online video.

“We have limited advisors,” YC admitted on Twitter, “But YC partners and staff will be on the forum to help out the community in any way we can.”

Here is a few excerpt of the YC statement:

As a Startup School founder, you will get access to all the course materials, the private community forum (advisors and YC partners will also participate), and you’ll be able to use the company update feature so that you’ll also be eligible for one of the hundred $10k equity-free grants.

The most important thing is that you will have a group of fellow founders to connect with so you can support one another. Unfortunately, we’re still constrained by number of advisors who volunteered to lead each group, which means your group won’t have an advisor. But having peers in a batch is what founders tell us is truly special about YC. We’re going to give you instructions on how to organize the group yourself and get nearly the same experience.

We’re excited about this new plan and look forward to having you in Startup School. We’ll send more information soon.

Several Nigerian companies has been accepted in the core Y Combinator program. These includes Paystack, Aella Credit, Flutterwave, Kudi.ai, Releaf, Buypower, Helium Health, Kangpe and Tizeti. CowryWise, a Nigerian fintech company was recently selected in YC’s three month program.