Calii YC Application

Summer 2018Active

Calii went through Y Combinator in the Summer 2018 batch as a Consumer 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: Summer 2018
Industry: ConsumerFood and Beverage
Team size: 750
Status: Active
Launched: 2018

Founders

Maurizio Caló CaligarisFounder
David ArrambideFounder

What Calii does

Calii is building the future of grocery shopping in LatAm by delivering ultra-fresh produce and thousands of grocery items in less than two hours - with savings and less waste! Founded by Stanford engineers, Calii is taking a full-stack, tech-driven approach connecting directly with producers and brands, automating the food supply chain end-to-end, and delivering to users’ doorsteps via a network of micro-fulfillment centers. By cutting middlemen and inefficiencies in the food supply chain, users get ultra-fresh groceries with savings, meanwhile helping the environment by reducing waste by up to 3X. Even though COVID-19 increased the use of grocery delivery apps, grocery shopping remains largely offline (~95%) and represents a multi-trillion dollar opportunity. Calii is already cracking the $1T groceries market in its path to become the next-gen Amazon in LatAm.

Calii's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Calii, Summer 2018 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Calii

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Full-stack grocery delivery in LatAm

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

We built a full-stack grocery delivery platform focusing on Latin America. Our product connects customers directly with producers and brands, automates the food supply chain end-to-end, and delivers ultra-fresh groceries to users' doors in under two hours using micro-fulfillment centers. By removing middlemen, we lower prices and reduce waste.

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

We live and base the company in Monterrey, N.L., Mexico, and plan to keep the company headquartered there after YC.

Explain your decision regarding location.

Monterrey is a key regional hub in Mexico with access to producers and a large customer market. Being based here lets us build direct relationships with local producers and optimize supply chains specific to LatAm, which foreigners don't understand well.

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 Calii YC application?

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