Alt-X YC Application

Winter 2026Active

Alt-X went through Y Combinator in the Winter 2026 batch as a Fintech company. Below: what the company does, who founded it, and its application to YC, reconstructed question by question in the real YC form.

YC batch: Winter 2026
Industry: Fintech
Team size: 2
Status: Active
Launched: 2025

Founders

Ryan SamadiFounder
Michael WachsmanFounder

What Alt-X does

Alt-X is building the AI-native liquidity layer for private markets. Private markets have created trillions of dollars in value, yet remain fragmented, illiquid, and inaccessible. While public markets benefit from exchanges, market makers, brokerages, and data infrastructure, private markets still rely on brokers, spreadsheets, and manual workflows to connect buyers and sellers. Alt-X uses AI to automate the core functions required to make private assets liquid. We streamline diligence, valuation, investor matching, and transaction execution, reducing the friction that makes private-market transactions slow, expensive, and opaque today. Our initial focus is venture-backed secondaries. We source opportunities from founders, employees, and early investors while building a network of accredited investors seeking exposure to the world's most valuable private companies. Over time, we believe every private asset - from startup equity to private credit and alternative investments - will require modern liquidity infrastructure. Building trusted infrastructure for private markets is difficult. Transactions involve complex diligence, fragmented information, transfer restrictions, and significant compliance requirements. Alt-X is focused on creating systems that can support real transactions at scale, not just marketplace listings. Ryan Samadi (Stanford CS/AI, former Citadel commodities trader) and Michael Wachsman (Cornell CS, infrastructure engineer) are building Alt-X because they believe ownership of innovation should be more liquid, transparent, and accessible. Today, Alt-X has sourced over $1.5 million in transaction opportunities and assembled a network of 40 accredited investors representing hundreds of millions of dollars in investable assets. Our mission is to democratize ownership of innovation by building the financial infrastructure that private markets have never had.

Alt-X's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Alt-X, Winter 2026 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Alt-X

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Automation for institutional-grade financial modeling in Excel

What is your company going to make? Please describe your product and what it does or will do.

We're building an AI-native liquidity layer for private markets, automating diligence, valuation, investor matching, and transaction execution to make private assets more liquid and accessible. Our initial product targets venture-backed secondaries by connecting founders, employees, and early investors with accredited investors through a streamlined platform.

Where do you live now, and where would the company be based after YC?

We live in Los Angeles, CA, and the company will remain based there after YC.

Explain your decision regarding location.

We are based in Los Angeles where we both live and work; this allows us to build effectively with no relocation needed and stay close to our early network and market.

21 more answers in the full application

Founders, Progress, Idea, Equity, Curious, Batch Preference are in the full version. Create a free account to open it in YC Insights, next to every other YC batch.

See full application

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this the real Alt-X YC application?

No. Y Combinator keeps submitted applications private. This is a reconstruction: the real YC form questions, answered from Alt-X's public data (launch notes, founder backgrounds, product description). It shows how a company like Alt-X would present itself to YC, not the text they submitted.