Chariot YC Application

Summer 2022Active

Chariot went through Y Combinator in the Summer 2022 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: Summer 2022
Industry: FintechPayments
Team size: 24
Status: Active
Launched: 2022

Founders

Salomon Serfati
Drew Schneider
Aaron Kahane

What Chariot does

Chariot is building the financial infrastructure for the $326 billion donor-advised fund (DAF) market, the fastest-growing segment of philanthropy. Our gift processing platform is an end-to-end solution for managing DAF payments, making it easier for grantmakers to send grant payments and nonprofits to receive, reconcile, and enrich their donation data. Chariot also powers DAFpay, the industry’s first integrated DAF payment option and a TIME’s Best Invention of 2025. It is embedded on over 100,000 nonprofits’ donation forms - including American Cancer Society, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and University of Pennsylvania - and is a primary payment option on leading fundraising platforms like GoFundMe and GiveButter. Hundreds of millions are already moving through Chariot’s platform, and we’re just getting started.

Chariot's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Chariot, Summer 2022 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Chariot

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Payment network connecting nonprofits to DAFs

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

We built a platform that handles donor-advised fund (DAF) payments end to end. It makes it easier for grantmakers to send payments and for nonprofits to receive and reconcile them - even enrich donation data. We also power DAFpay, a DAF payment option embedded on over 100,000 nonprofit donation forms and integrated into popular fundraising platforms.

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

We live in New York, NY, and plan to base the company there after YC as well.

Explain your decision regarding location.

New York is where our network, customers, and team are. Being close to nonprofits and philanthropic organizations helps us build better products and maintain relationships.

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 Chariot YC application?

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