Explorex YC Application

Summer 2020Active

Explorex went through Y Combinator in the Summer 2020 batch as a Consumer 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 2020
Industry: Consumer
Team size: 25
Status: Active
Launched: 2020

Founders

Mainak SarkarFounder
Pritam KhanFounder

What Explorex does

Explorex is building the operating system for dining - powering both restaurants and the end consumer experience through a tightly integrated ecosystem. While most companies in the space focus on software for restaurants or discovery for diners, Explorex connects both sides of the equation. Our platform combines a full-stack restaurant OS (Bridge) with a consumer layer (Elite), enabling seamless, real-time dining experiences - from discovering a place, to ordering, to paying, all without friction. At the core of this is Elite - our consumer app that is redefining how people dine out. Diners can see live table availability, access dynamic menus, place orders, and self-checkout instantly without waiting for staff. This removes the biggest friction in dining - interruptions - and turns going out into a smooth, uninterrupted experience. What makes Explorex fundamentally different is the data layer. Unlike delivery platforms that only see orders, we capture real-world, in-venue behavior - what people order, how long they stay, how groups behave, how menus perform, and how experiences impact spending. We are now building Elara, an AI-powered dining concierge that uses this data to guide users to the best possible experience in real time - factoring in intent, context, weather, vibe, availability, and historical behavior. This allows us to move beyond discovery into decision-making, becoming the intelligence layer for offline commerce. For restaurants, this translates into higher revenue through better table utilization, increased average order value, and direct access to high-intent consumers. For diners, it means a faster, more personalized, and significantly better dining experience. Explorex is not a SaaS tool - it is the infrastructure layer for offline dining, with AI and consumer experience at its core.

Explorex's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Explorex, Summer 2020 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Explorex

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Ecosystem Platform for Restaurants in India

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

We are building an operating system for dining called Bridge for restaurants and a consumer app called Elite. Our platform lets diners see live table availability, browse menus, order, and self-checkout, while powering restaurants with real-time management. We're also developing Elara, an AI dining concierge that uses data from in-venue behavior to guide users to ideal experiences.

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

We live in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, and the company is based there.

Explain your decision regarding location.

Bengaluru is India's tech hub with a thriving restaurant scene ideal for building and testing our platform. Being local helps us work closely with restaurants and early users.

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 Explorex YC application?

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