smol machines YC Application

Spring 2026Active

smol machines went through Y Combinator in the Spring 2026 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: Spring 2026
Industry: B2BInfrastructure
Team size: 1
Status: Active
Launched: 2026

Founders

BinBin HeFounder

What smol machines does

Smol machines solve the problem of "but app works on my machine" by shipping the machine. Smol machine enables devs to ship a lightweight virtual machine with any software, similar to how Electron ships an entire browser with the web app.

smol machines's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

smol machines, Spring 2026 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

smol machines

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Ship software faster with portable VMs

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

We are building a way for developers to ship their software inside lightweight, self-contained virtual machines. This solves "it works on my machine" problems by packaging the entire environment alongside the app, similar to how Electron bundles a browser with a web app, but for any software.

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

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

Explain your decision regarding location.

San Francisco is where we are located, and it offers the best access to early users in infrastructure and cloud computing as well as investors.

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 smol machines YC application?

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