Prolific YC Application

Summer 2019Active

Prolific went through Y Combinator in the Summer 2019 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 2019
Industry: B2B
Team size: 180
Status: Active
Launched: 2019

Founders

Phelim BradleyFounder

What Prolific does

Prolific helps dedicated research teams to collect the very highest-quality human-powered data - at scale - using our simple-to-use platform to target and manage participants from our diverse, vetted participant pool. The truth matters: the best decisions, and biggest discoveries, are built on the highest-quality data. And with the increasing proliferation of AI, access to reliable, diverse data to develop and train AI models has never been more important. Created by researchers for researchers, Prolific was founded to provide a better way for researchers and organisations to get high-quality human data and feedback at scale for important research. Now, more than 30,000 researchers across academia and industry use Prolific to gather definitive human data and feedback from reliable, engaged and fairly-treated participants - with a new study launched every 3 minutes.

Prolific's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Prolific, Summer 2019 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Prolific

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Making diverse, high-quality data easily available

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

We built a platform that connects researchers to a vetted, diverse pool of human participants so they can collect reliable data and feedback at scale. Researchers can design studies, target specific participant groups, and manage studies efficiently. Our focus is on data quality and participant treatment.

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

We are based in London, England, United Kingdom, and would continue to be based here after YC.

Explain your decision regarding location.

London has a strong research and tech community, and our team and users are mostly here. Staying local helps us stay close to our customers and participants.

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 Prolific YC application?

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