Arissa Zheng

Y Combinator is the leading startup accelerator for entrepreneurs. Since 2005, YC has invested in over 5,400 companies, including Airbnb, Dropbox, Stripe, Reddit, Instacart, DoorDash, and Coinbase. Today, YC has built the most powerful startup community in the world alongside the products and programs to support founders for the life of their company.

We back the best university and recent alumni founders — like Cursor, Dandy, RapidSOS, and Shield AI — with a network of investors, mentors, and their first check.

Free Ventures is UC Berkeleys leading pre-seed startup incubator, crafting highly individualized paths for founders across industries and academic backgrounds in a 3-month program. As the universitys only nonprofit program run by students, for students, we aren’t pressed for returns or exits. Instead, we spend our full time cultivating relationships with top undergraduate and graduate student groups, and curate a support network of top venture capitalists, resource partners, founders, and thought leaders from the Valley for our portfolio. In doing so, we make entrepreneurship accessible to Berkeley students of all backgrounds by empowering them with the support to innovate and build. Over 11 years, weve helped 100+ portfolio companies raise $200M+ in follow-on capital from Kleiner Perkins, Accel, Greylock, and more. Weve had multiple YC exits & acquisitions by companies like Coinbase, Discord, and Opendoor. Visit www.freeventures.org to learn more and follow us on Twitter @freeventures.