Promoted.ai YC Application

Winter 2021Acquired

Promoted.ai went through Y Combinator in the Winter 2021 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: Winter 2021
Industry: B2B
Team size: 12
Status: Acquired
Launched: 2021

Founders

Dan HillCofounder and CTO

What Promoted.ai does

Promoted.ai unifies search, native ads, and feed ranking for online marketplaces and scaled e-commerce apps to dramatically improve relevance (and revenue) using AI. We are a team of ex-Google, Meta, and Pinterest ads engineers. Our customers are publicly traded and late-stage marketplace companies like Eventbrite, Upwork, and Outschool. Our mission is to connect every buyer and seller.

Promoted.ai's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Promoted.ai, Winter 2021 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Promoted.ai

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Dramatically better search and ads for marketplaces

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

We build AI-powered software that unifies search results, native ads, and feed ranking for online marketplaces and scaled e-commerce apps. Our product improves relevance and revenue by better matching buyers and sellers in platforms like Eventbrite, Upwork, and Outschool.

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

We're based in Seattle, WA, and would remain here after YC.

Explain your decision regarding location.

Seattle is where the whole team lives. It's a hub for tech talent and our founders come from large ad tech companies here. Moving would disrupt the current team and connection to our marketplace customers.

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 Promoted.ai YC application?

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