Palus Finance YC Application

Winter 2026Active

Palus Finance went through Y Combinator in the Winter 2026 batch as a Fintech 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 2026
Industry: Fintech
Team size: 2
Status: Active
Launched: 2026

Founders

Sam LushtakFounder and CEO
Michael GonzalezFounder

What Palus Finance does

Palus Finance is the first treasury management platform with a higher-yield bond portfolio for companies’ idle cash. We launched in late February and are live with 33 companies, growing 110% week-over-week. Existing startup/SMB treasury products just sweep cash into a money market fund and charge a high management fee. Palus offers a short-duration bond portfolio which safely earns ~40% more yield than money market funds, with sub-3-day liquidity, and 5-minute setup with customers' existing bank accounts. We see treasury as a great wedge to eventually offer full-suite banking services to all high-growth companies. Sam and Michael are technical cofounders who met at Caltech. Sam previously built the AI research platform for a $3T AUM asset manager; Michael built quantum computers for the defense industry.

Palus Finance's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Palus Finance, Winter 2026 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Palus Finance

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

40% higher yields on company cash, in under 5 minutes.

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

We built a treasury management platform that gives companies a short-duration bond portfolio for idle cash. It beats money market funds by about 40% yield and takes under 5 minutes to set up with their existing bank accounts. Customers keep liquidity in under 3 days. We're live with dozens of companies and growing fast.

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

n/a

Explain your decision regarding location.

n/a

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 Palus Finance YC application?

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