Penny YC Application

Winter 2017Acquired

Penny went through Y Combinator in the Winter 2017 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 2017
Industry: FintechConsumer Finance
Team size: 2
Status: Acquired
Launched: 2016

Founders

Mitch LeeFounder
Alex QuachFounder

What Penny does

Penny is a personal finance app that helps you track your income and spending. Penny accesses your statement history - with your permission - and uses that information to help you manage your finances. Whenever you open the app, she’ll chat with you about your finances: letting you know how you’re doing this month, forecasting where you’ll be next month, giving you a heads up about upcoming bills, or even helping you cancel services you don’t use. Penny makes finances less intimidating and stressful. Many apps have lots of useful features, but they’re often hard to use and time-consuming. Penny automatically organizes your finances, explains them simply and clearly, and tells you what you need to know, when you need to know it.

Penny's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Penny, Winter 2017 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Penny

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Penny simplifies personal finance tracking.

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

We made Penny, a personal finance app that accesses your bank statements with permission to track income and spending. Penny chats with users regularly about how they're doing financially, forecasts future trends, and warns about upcoming bills or unused subscriptions. It automatically organizes and explains finances in a way people find easier and less stressful than existing apps.

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

We both live in San Francisco and plan to base the company here after YC.

Explain your decision regarding location.

San Francisco is where we live and the center of fintech innovation and startup talent, making it the natural place to build Penny.

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 Penny YC application?

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