A Review of YC's Request for Startups

February 16, 2024

  • News stories: (1) HVAC Quote Automation (TechCrunch) , (2) FTC proposes AI Tool Impersonation Ban (WSJ)

  • A review of YC’s request for startups

  • Resource: Request for startups

  • StratupAI Generated Idea: Machine Learning-Powered Robotic System for Precision Farming

News

An edition or two ago, another news story shared covered something similar. Improving efficiencies of quoting. (Previously for landscaping, here for heat pumps.) The demand is there, according to TechCrunch, “To cope with the workload, the U.S. will add 23,000 technicians by 2032. Even then, they’ll probably be overworked.”

“The agency is seeking comment from the public on whether the revised rule should make it illegal for a firm, including an AI platform, to provide goods or services that they know or have reason to know are being used to harm consumers through impersonation.” (WSJ)

A review of YC’s request for startups

YC has released a guide for ideas and categories that they believe may hold higher than average opportunity, presumably due to either timely technological advancement or demand. In other words, these are areas they may feel more compelled to invest in.

They preface with,

“Please don’t feel that you need to work on one of these ideas in order to apply to Y Combinator.  We expect the ideas on this list will only be a small fraction of the ideas we actually fund - but if an idea on this list is something you'd be excited to work on anyway, we hope the fact that we think it's especially promising will give you extra encouragement to dive into it.”

Y Combinator

The following are just a portion of the areas covered in the YC article.

The first area they mention is industrial robotics controlled by ML/AI. They emphasize the B2B aspect.

Second, and perhaps one of the more exciting areas in my opinion, is “applying machine learning to simulate the physical world”. This could improve drug/biotech development timelines and aid in creating previously impossible treatments for disease.

Other use cases they mention are “weather predictions” and “computational fluid dynamics”, among presumably many others.

In terms of US-based manufacturing, they highlight two factors that will make it economically viable. 1) The automation of production processes will reduce the competitive advantage of countries with lower labor costs and 2) US Government backing, as indicated by the CHIPS Act.

For climate tech, YC says, “The financial opportunity of building in this space is massive: an estimated $3-10 trillion in EBITDA will be up for grabs.”

Next, interestingly, “The world needs to scale up the number of MRI scans it does by at least 100x."

For biology research they say: “We are interested in funding highly technical founders building foundational models from scratch in any part of biology or medicine.”

Surbhi Sarna brings up a well-known point, the bloated cost of healthcare via “middlemen”: “A recent report on medicare spending on drugs found that 70% of spend went to middlemen (primarily PBMs, wholesalers, and pharmacies) and only 30% to the pharmaceutical companies who make the drugs.”

I didn’t mention every area included in the article. If these seem interesting so far, feel free to read the full list.

Resource

YC Request for startups: https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs

StratupAI Idea

Machine Learning-Powered Robotic System for Precision Farming

“Precision agriculture is an emerging field that aims to optimize farming practices and improve crop yields. A compelling B2B startup idea would be to develop a machine learning-powered robotic system specifically designed for precision farming. This robotic system would be equipped with sensors and cameras to monitor crops, collect data on soil conditions, moisture levels, and plant health. It would utilize machine learning algorithms to analyze this data and provide real-time recommendations for irrigation, fertilization, and pest control. This innovation would help farmers make data-driven decisions, reduce resource waste, and increase overall agricultural productivity.”

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