Raycast YC Application

Winter 2020Active

Raycast went through Y Combinator in the Winter 2020 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 2020
Industry: B2BProductivity
Team size: 27
Status: Active
Launched: 2020

Founders

Thomas MannFounder
Petr NikolaevFounder

What Raycast does

Raycast is a productivity tool that saves engineering teams time on non-coding tasks in apps like Jira, GitHub or Slack which might take up to 50% of a developer's day.

Raycast's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Raycast, Winter 2020 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Raycast

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Speed up non-coding tasks for engineering teams

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

We're building a productivity tool specifically for engineering teams that cuts down the time they spend on non-coding tasks in apps like Jira, GitHub, and Slack. Our product surfaces those tasks through a fast, command-based interface so developers don't have to switch contexts or dig through menus. It saves a lot of time that otherwise adds up to half a developer's day.

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

We live in London, England, and the company is based there with a remote team.

Explain your decision regarding location.

We started in London because that's where we both live and know the community. We have a remote-first mindset to attract talent worldwide but keep London as our core base for collaboration and operations.

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 Raycast YC application?

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