Y Combinator Foundation fires 20% of employees and reduces investments in companies

Y Combinator

Venture capital firm Y Combinator has cut 20% of its team and will invest less in growth-stage companies. They announced this on the company's website.

Seventeen employees were left without work. The accelerator said that the bankruptcy of Silicon Valley Bank was not a factor and that they were developing a strategy for changes "long before" the crash. However, 30% of Y Combinator startups have deposits specifically in SVB.

YC CEO Harry Tan wrote that the accelerator, primarily focused on early-stage investing, believes that late-stage investing "distracts from the main mission."

Tan also stated that regulators taking control of SVB would reject startups and innovations by ten or more years. "All small startups, tomorrow's Google and Facebook, will be destroyed if we don't find solutions," he wrote.

They also created a petition signed by over 5,000 technology leaders and founders asking Congress to intervene and support the entrepreneurial community.

Recall that оn March 10, 2023, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), a large bank in California and the central bank for startups and investors in Silicon Valley, declared bankruptcy with a Moody's credit rating of A (high).