Lygos YC Application

Winter 2016Active

Lygos went through Y Combinator in the Winter 2016 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 2016
Industry: HealthcareIndustrial Bio
Team size: 55
Status: Active
Launched: 2016

Founders

Eric SteenFounder/CSO

What Lygos does

Founded in 2010, Lygos is providing biotechnology solutions for today’s renewable chemical challenges. They engineer microbes to convert sugars into high-value, industrial chemicals, targeting compounds where biological production is cost-advantaged over petrochemical production.

Lygos's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Lygos, Winter 2016 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Lygos

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Engineering yeast to produce industrial chemicals

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

We engineer yeast strains that convert sugar into high-value, renewable industrial chemicals that replace petrochemical processes where bio routes are cost-advantaged. Our microbes produce chemicals used in sectors like flavors, fragrances, and specialty materials.

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

We live in San Francisco, CA, and intend to keep the company based here after YC.

Explain your decision regarding location.

San Francisco has the biotech talent and ecosystem we need. It's where our team lives and the infrastructure for synthetic biology startups is strongest.

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 Lygos YC application?

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