Celery YC Application

Summer 2012Inactive

Celery went through Y Combinator in the Summer 2012 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: Summer 2012
Industry: B2BRetail
Team size: 11
Status: Inactive
Launched: 2012

Founders

Chris TsaiFounder/CEO
Peter ShihFounder/CTO
Brian NguyenFounder/CPO

What Celery does

Celery emerged from Y Combinator in 2012 with one goal: to help you sell your great ideas, better. Filling a void in e-commerce, Celery has become the single-stop for innovative brands - large and small - to take pre-orders, crowdfund independently, and to continue selling before and after items are in-stock. Today, Celery has helped thousands of businesses launch their way by providing the tools to crowdfund and pre-sell independently. Celery is founded by a team crowdfunding and e-commerce experts and alums from MIT, Stanford, Groupon, LinkedIn and Foursquare, and is venture-backed by Y Combinator, General Catalyst, Elementum Ventures, Max Levchin, SV Angel, and other top investors.

Celery's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Celery, Summer 2012 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Celery

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Platform for pre-orders and crowdfunding

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

Celery is a platform that helps brands take pre-orders and crowdfund their products independently. It lets businesses, from small startups to larger brands, start selling before inventory is ready and continue selling after items are back in stock. Our tools fill a gap in e-commerce for managing pre-sales and crowdfunding without relying on third-party platforms.

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

We all live in San Francisco, CA, and the company will be based there after YC.

Explain your decision regarding location.

Being in San Francisco puts us at the center of e-commerce innovation, close to potential users and investors, and surrounded by a strong tech community. This density helps us move fast and get direct feedback.

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 Celery YC application?

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