Risely AI YC Application

Summer 2025Active

Risely AI went through Y Combinator in the Summer 2025 batch as a Education 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 2025
Industry: Education
Team size: 9
Status: Active
Launched: 2025

Founders

Shahryar AbbasiFounder
Sadia SaifuddinFounder

What Risely AI does

Risely’s AI agents will form the new operating system for universities, improving retention, staff productivity, and efficiency. Our platform integrates directly into existing university systems (SIS, LMS, CRM), learns each institution’s unique workflows, and deploys specialized AI agents. This dramatically reduces the $735 billion universities spend annually on administrative labor, expands staff capacity without increasing headcount, and improves the student experience. This hasn't been done before because university workflows require nuanced, autonomous judgment, exactly what agentic AI was designed to solve. Our team uniquely combines deep expertise in higher education, enterprise-scale AI, and regulated enterprise sales. Sadia previously built Salesforce’s Education Cloud from scratch, creating the core Student Information System widely used across higher education. She deeply understands university operations and maintains trusted relationships with hundreds of higher-ed CIOs and Provosts. Danial was one of DoorDash’s earliest engineers, where he architected and scaled complex systems from zero to billions of transactions, including their search, recommendation, and Voice AI platforms. He knows how to build robust AI solutions that reliably perform at enterprise scale. Shahryar was a GM at Airwallex, where he built the entire Americas business from 0 to 1 and drove 11x revenue growth. He’s also a master closer, single-handedly securing over $17M in enterprise deals at NerdWallet. He’s a relentless startup executor with deep expertise launching and scaling go-to-market machines in highly regulated industries. We launched six weeks ago and are already at $8k MRR, growing 55% week-over-week -- one of the fastest ramps ever in higher ed. Universities urgently need solutions that expand labor capacity and efficiency, especially as they face unprecedented budget pressure and staffing shortages. With unmatched buyer access, deep technical expertise, and rapid early traction, we are perfectly positioned to own this enormous market.

Risely AI's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Risely AI, Summer 2025 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Risely AI

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

AI agents automating college campus admin work

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

We build AI agents that plug into university systems like Student Information Systems, Learning Management Systems, and CRMs. Our platform learns each school's workflows and automates administrative tasks autonomously, expanding staff capacity and improving student retention and experience.

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

We live and work in San Francisco, CA, and plan to keep the company based here after YC.

Explain your decision regarding location.

San Francisco is where the team is already located, offering access to tech talent, AI expertise, and investors focused on enterprise and education tech.

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 Risely AI YC application?

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