Bountiful YC Application

Winter 2017Active

Bountiful went through Y Combinator in the Winter 2017 batch as a Industrials 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 2017
Industry: IndustrialsAgriculture
Team size: 4
Status: Active
Launched: 2016

Founders

Megan NunesFounder/CEO

What Bountiful does

We’re on a mission to optimize the agricultural industry. When we started Bountiful in 2015, the grape error rate for predicting production was 30 percent. Why? We found that many farmers in the specialty crops space were still using traditional pencil-and-paper techniques to predict yield. These low-fidelity forecasting methods weren’t giving them a clear enough understanding of their production until it was too late, leading to waste and inefficiency throughout the supply chain. We saw a problem we wanted to solve. Today, Bountiful is using advanced data science to help farmers forecast more accurately, so they can make better decisions. In the last three years, we’ve combined the latest in machine learning with weather, satellite, geographic, and historical data. The result is a user-friendly platform that transforms volumes of complex agricultural information into simple, actionable insights farmers can use to run more economically and environmentally sustainable farms. More recently, we’re working to open the dialogue between buyers and sellers, remove uncertainty, and provide clarity to the supply chain to meet global food demand. Our ultimate goal is to close the agricultural margin of error. Not only will this make individual farms more efficient, profitable, and sustainable, but it will help optimize the global food supply chain. That means healthier people and a healthier planet.

Bountiful's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Bountiful, Winter 2017 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Bountiful

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

An Operating System for agriculture.

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

We built a platform that helps specialty crop farmers forecast their yields more accurately. Our product combines machine learning with weather, satellite, geographic, and historical data to turn complex agricultural inputs into actionable insights. This lets farmers reduce waste and inefficiency by understanding their production earlier and more precisely.

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

We live and work in San Francisco, CA, and the company would remain based here after YC.

Explain your decision regarding location.

San Francisco gives us access to top engineering talent and proximity to tech investors, which helps us build and scale a data-driven agriculture platform.

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 Bountiful YC application?

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