Demo Day highlights graduates of startup accelerator Y Combinator’s famous training program, which has incubated successful companies like Dropbox and Airbnb. Entrepreneurs in search of investors prepare two-minute pitches for their startup, which they present to a few hundred venture capitalists in attendance.
For the first time, one-quarter of the 142 startups that presented at the event Aug. 20 to Aug. 22 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif., were included in the “bio” category, which includes food, agriculture and healthcare technology.
Y Combinator has seen an increase in the number of bio participants since 2011, when the incubator made its first investments in the space. The trend reflects growing popularity of biotech among entrepreneurs in general and the incubator’s rising name recognition in health and biology spaces, Y Combinator Partner Dalton Caldwell told Wired.
To address regulatory challenges specific to startups in healthcare and biology, Y Combinator brought on biotech entrepreneur Diego Rey as a visiting partner, and it is encouraging participating startups to work with Enzyme, a past graduate of the program that provides “FDA compliance-as-a-service.”
To access Wired‘s article and roundup of noteworthy bio startups that presented at Demo Day this year, click here.
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