CO2Stats YC Application

Summer 2008Inactive

CO2Stats went through Y Combinator in the Summer 2008 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 2008
Industry: B2BEngineering, Product and Design
Status: Inactive
Launched: 2012

Founders

Alexander Wissner-GrossFounder

What CO2Stats does

CO2Stats aims to help website owners understand the electricity usage and related carbon emissions associated with site usage, and then helps site owners manage their carbon footprint. The company calculates the greenhouse gas footprint of visits to your site, based on locations of your visitors and servers, computer types, window and monitor sizes, local fuel mixes, download sizes and times. Every month CO2Stats purchase Green-E certified Renewable Energy Certificates to offset your site's CO2 footprint. Users can inspect your certificates and other environmental statistics by clicking on your CO2Stats badge.

CO2Stats's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

CO2Stats, Summer 2008 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

CO2Stats

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Social and environmental web analytics

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

We built a tool that measures the carbon emissions from website traffic by analyzing visitor locations, device types, server locations, and page load data. It then helps site owners reduce and offset their carbon footprint by purchasing verified renewable energy certificates and displaying environmental badges on their sites.

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

We're based in Cambridge, MA, and the company would remain here after YC.

Explain your decision regarding location.

Cambridge is where we live and work, with access to technical talent and a strong startup ecosystem. Staying local keeps us focused and agile.

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 CO2Stats YC application?

No. Y Combinator keeps submitted applications private. This is a reconstruction: the real YC form questions, answered from CO2Stats's public data (launch notes, founder backgrounds, product description). It shows how a company like CO2Stats would present itself to YC, not the text they submitted.