Crocodoc YC Application

Winter 2010Acquired

Crocodoc went through Y Combinator in the Winter 2010 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: Winter 2010
Industry: B2BEngineering, Product and Design
Status: Acquired
Launched: 2012

Founders

Ryan DamicoFounder/CEO
Peter LaiFounder
Matt LongFounder
Bennett RogersFounder

What Crocodoc does

Crocodoc developed the world's most advanced web-based document viewing and collaboration technology for Microsoft Office and PDF files, built on open standards such as HTML5 and CSS3. Whether viewing a document, adding comments to a presentation, highlighting an e-textbook, or filling out a form, we make it easy for companies to create amazing experiences for their users with technology that is secure, scalable, and trusted by top brands in the consumer and enterprise space. Every month users upload millions of documents to Crocodoc, whose customers include top brands such as Dropbox, Yammer, LinkedIn, SAP, and Edmodo. Crocodoc was founded in 2007 and is funded by Y Combinator, SV Angel, 500 Startups, and top angel investors including Joshua Schachter, Paul Buchheit, Steve Chen, and Shan Sinha.

Crocodoc's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Crocodoc, Winter 2010 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Crocodoc

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Embed PDFs, PowerPoints, and other documents into web and mobile apps

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

We built a web-based document viewer and collaboration tool that lets companies embed and interact with Microsoft Office docs and PDFs inside their apps using HTML5 and CSS3 instead of plugins or static images. Users can view, comment, highlight, or fill forms securely and seamlessly in the browser or on mobile.

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

We live in San Francisco now and the company will be based here after YC.

Explain your decision regarding location.

San Francisco is where we live and it's the core tech hub with customers and investors nearby. Being here accelerates our ability to build and sell to the enterprise and consumer web sectors we target.

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 Crocodoc YC application?

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