Lever YC Application

Summer 2012Acquired

Lever went through Y Combinator in the Summer 2012 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 2012
Industry: B2BRecruiting and Talent
Team size: 225
Status: Acquired
Launched: 2012

Founders

Nate SmithFounder/CEO/CTO
Sarah NahmFounder/CEO
Brian NoguchiFounder

What Lever does

Lever is one of the most recognized brands in talent acquisition software for high growth companies. We enable teams to post jobs, source, interview, and hire top talent. We've combined ATS & CRM into a single platform, Lever TRM. Our Talent Acquisition Suite also includes tools for recruitment marketing and analytics: Lever Nurture, Lever Advanced Analytics, and Lever Data Warehouse Sync. Our customers include Netflix, KPMG, Spotify, Talend, Cirque du Soleil, and over 5000 other customers. Lever has raised $123 million in funding from Apax Digital, Adam Street Partners, Scale Venture Partners, Matrix Partners, and Y Combinator among others. With an overall gender ratio of 50:50, Lever is also fiercely committed to building a team culture that celebrates diversity and inclusion. For more information, visit

Lever's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Lever, Summer 2012 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Lever

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Talent Acquisition Suite combining ATS + CRM

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

We have built Lever TRM, a platform that combines applicant tracking and talent relationship management. It lets recruiting teams post jobs, source candidates, conduct interviews, and hire efficiently. We also provide recruitment marketing and analytics tools to help our customers manage their talent pipeline easily in one system.

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

We live in San Francisco, CA, USA, and the company is based here.

Explain your decision regarding location.

San Francisco puts us close to many high-growth companies and talent customers who need better recruiting software. It also connects us to the tech community and potential investors.

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 Lever YC application?

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