DiligenceSquared YC Application

Fall 2025Active

DiligenceSquared went through Y Combinator in the Fall 2025 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: Fall 2025
Industry: B2BAnalytics
Team size: 3
Status: Active
Launched: 2025

Founders

Frederik HansenCo-Founder & CEO
Soren Biltoft-KnudsenCo-Founder & President

What DiligenceSquared does

DiligenceSquared delivers AI-powered market due diligence for investment decisions - like the $500k McKinsey reports, but automated, auditable, and at a fraction of the cost. When Private Equity funds evaluate deals, they pay firms like McKinsey, BCG, and Bain $500K-$1M for market due diligence. The process takes weeks, and the output is a static PowerPoint that's impossible to audit. A single large-cap PE fund can spend >$30M annually on this and the total market is $10B per year. Our AI agents conduct expert interviews and synthesize insights with every claim linked to source transcripts. No black box, no "trust me" slides, and no 10x mark-up for human labor. Frederik bought these reports as a Principal at Blackstone. Soren sold them as a Principal at BCG. Harshil is a repeat founder and former Software Engineer at Google. We've seen both sides and know what matters in due diligence - and now we automate it. Our clients already include 8 leading private equity funds with over $2.4 trillion in combined AUM.

DiligenceSquared's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

DiligenceSquared, Fall 2025 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

DiligenceSquared

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

AI-powered market due diligence

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

We built an AI platform that automates market due diligence for investment decisions. It conducts expert interviews via AI agents and synthesizes the insights with every claim linked back to source transcripts. This replaces expensive, manual reports from consultancies like McKinsey, but with full transparency and at a fraction of the cost.

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

We currently live and work in New York City, and the company will be based here after YC.

Explain your decision regarding location.

NYC is where we have our networks in private equity and consulting, and where our early clients are. Being here gives us direct market access to customers who buy due diligence reports.

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 DiligenceSquared YC application?

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