Backdrop YC Application

Winter 2023Active

Backdrop went through Y Combinator in the Winter 2023 batch as a B2B 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 2023
Industry: B2B
Team size: 2
Status: Active
Launched: 2023

Founders

Akanksha SinghFounder
Caitlin ShortFounder

What Backdrop does

Operating system for autonomous AI agents. Agents come pre-configured and run in the cloud with their own identity. Teams can assign tasks, communicate with agents directly on Slack, and see a full audit trail of everything they did.

Backdrop's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Backdrop, Winter 2023 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Backdrop

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Hire your first AI Product team.

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

We built an operating system for autonomous AI agents that come pre-configured and run in the cloud with their own identities. Teams use Backdrop to assign tasks, talk to agents via Slack, and get a complete audit trail of the agents' work.

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

We live in Seattle, WA, and the company would remain based here after YC.

Explain your decision regarding location.

We're rooted in Seattle because that's where we built the initial product and gained our earliest users. There's no reason to relocate when cloud software and Slack integrations mean our customers and collaborators are distributed.

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 Backdrop YC application?

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