Gem YC Application

Summer 2017Active

Gem went through Y Combinator in the Summer 2017 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 2017
Industry: B2BRecruiting and Talent
Team size: 200
Status: Active
Launched: 2017

Founders

Steven BartelFounder/CEO

What Gem does

Gem’s talent engagement platform helps recruiting teams use data and automation to improve hiring speed, quality, and diversity. Gem unifies data and context from the tools recruiters use every day, including email, applicant tracking systems, LinkedIn, and other social networks, to create a source of truth for all talent relationships. Armed with insights about the entire recruiting process, automation to reach out to talent at scale, and true cross-functional collaboration tools, TA teams can proactively and strategically plan for what’s ahead. Gem's customers are savvy recruiting teams from industry-leading companies - like Wayfair, Dropbox, Nasdaq, Cisco, and Doordash - who understand that hiring the best talent in the market is key to maintaining their competitive advantage.

Gem's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Gem, Summer 2017 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Gem

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Talent engagement platform

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

We built a platform that unifies recruiter data and communication across email, ATS, LinkedIn, and other sources to provide a single source of truth for all talent relationships. It gives talent acquisition teams automation tools to reach candidates at scale and analytics to improve hiring speed, quality, and diversity.

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

We live in San Francisco, CA and will continue to be based here after YC.

Explain your decision regarding location.

San Francisco is the center of the recruiting and tech ecosystems we're selling into. Being here lets us stay close to customers and talent.

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 Gem YC application?

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