Donkey YC Application

Summer 2026Active

San Francisco

Donkey went through Y Combinator in the Summer 2026 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 2026
Industry: B2BSupply Chain and Logistics
Location: San Francisco
Team size: 5
Status: Active
Launched: 2026

Founders

Benjamin MartindaleFounder/CEO
Minghao TanFounder/CTO

What Donkey does

Donkey is the AI-native trading company. Upload a buying list and we land the whole container at one locked, delivered price, tariffs included. You buy from Donkey: one contract, one company responsible for everything between the factory floor and your door. Our own people check the cartons before the factory gets paid, and the balance is due when the goods are accepted at your dock. Small businesses buy imports through three or four middlemen, each adding 15 to 30 points, because none of them can fill a container on their own. Big enough to buy pallets, never big enough to buy the box. Quotes float with freight, FX and tariffs and live 15 to 30 days. A trading company is rooms of people on the phone with factories, forwarders and brokers. Donkey runs that as one engine. It finds the real factory behind the customs record, stacks duty line by line, packs the container on weight and cube, and returns one number that holds from signature. Next comes the shared container: small buyers fill one box together at container prices, and every container earns better factory terms for the next one. Team in San Francisco and Wuhan, English and Mandarin. If your business buys pallets of anything imported, send us your buying list.

Donkey's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Donkey, Summer 2026 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Donkey

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

AI-native trading: container price, delivered, one quote.

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

We built Donkey to let businesses buy imported goods at true factory prices, delivered with one locked-in quote. You upload a buying list and Donkey handles everything: factory sourcing, contracts, inspection, shipping, tariffs, all baked into one price that doesn't change. You only deal with us, not a chain of brokers and middlemen. We're automating what trading companies do manually: finding the real source, packing containers efficiently, and making one accountable engine between the factory and your dock.

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

We are based in San Francisco, with team members in Wuhan. After YC, the company will stay based in San Francisco.

Explain your decision regarding location.

The supply chain backbone runs from China to the US, so the team splits across San Francisco and Wuhan. Our buyers are largely in the US, and YC's network is in SF, so that's our main base.

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 Donkey YC application?

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