Equator Therapeutics YC Application

Winter 2020Active

Equator Therapeutics went through Y Combinator in the Winter 2020 batch as a Healthcare 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 2020
Industry: HealthcareTherapeutics
Team size: 2
Status: Active
Launched: 2020

Founders

Liliya KhasinFounder
Yuriy KirichokFounder
Jonah SinickFounder

What Equator Therapeutics does

We are developing a drug to increase metabolism and burn calories without exercise. Obesity and type 2 diabetes have reached epidemic proportions. There are 2.2B overweight people and 500M people with type 2 diabetes worldwide, and these numbers increase drastically every year. Existing drugs are not effective enough to reverse the trend. Our drug can solve this problem, because it addresses the root cause of metabolic disorders - the imbalance between caloric intake and expenditure. Our drug will target mitochondria - the powerhouse of the cell - to generate heat. This approach has been proven to fully reverse obesity and type 2 diabetes in animals. However, therapeutic application for humans was impossible, because mitochondrial heat production could only be induced by highly artificial methods with side effects. This changed after our recent breakthrough discovery of the protein that mitochondria naturally use to generate heat. We have developed a unique high-throughput drug discovery platform to identify compounds that selectively activate this target protein, without side effects. For decades people have wanted a drug that burns calories like exercise does. We are realizing this dream at Equator Therapeutics.

Equator Therapeutics's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Equator Therapeutics, Winter 2020 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Equator Therapeutics

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Drug to burn calories and increase metabolism

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

We are developing a drug that activates a natural protein in mitochondria to generate heat, burning calories and increasing metabolism without exercise. Our approach targets the root cause of obesity and type 2 diabetes by shifting the balance between calorie intake and expenditure through mitochondrial heat production, overcoming the side effects of previous methods.

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

We live in San Francisco and plan to keep the company based here after YC.

Explain your decision regarding location.

San Francisco is where the team already lives and works, giving us access to biotech talent and resources critical for developing a therapeutic drug.

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 Equator Therapeutics YC application?

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