Soylent YC Application

Summer 2012Acquired

Soylent went through Y Combinator in the Summer 2012 batch as a Consumer 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 2012
Industry: ConsumerFood and Beverage
Team size: 51
Status: Acquired
Launched: 2012

Founders

Rob RhinehartFounder/CEO
John CooganFounder/CTO
Hunter ScottFounder
K TFounder
Matt CaubleFounder/COO

What Soylent does

Rosa Foods, maker of Soylent and Coffiest, is a pioneer in food technology, delivering nutritionally-complete staple meals that provide all the essential nutrients required to fuel the human body. Rosa Foods believes in managing the Company and the product by never being complacent and staying on the cutting edge of food technology and nutrition. Working at Rosa Foods you’ll have a platform to build cool things that positively affect the world with fun and dedicated people. Rosa Foods products are produced with sustainability and efficiency in mind to create a convenient, nutritious, and affordable meal that is better for our health and the environment. We also have raised over $75M in funding from Google Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Lerer Ventures, and Y-Combinator. This enables us to offer the benefits of a larger organization while still maintaining the best qualities of a startup. You’ll be able to help grow our small creative team and contribute your ideas to build this exciting brand. The company is headquartered in Los Angeles, CA.

Soylent's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Soylent, Summer 2012 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Soylent

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Simple, nutritious, affordable staple food

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

We're making Soylent, a nutritionally-complete food designed to deliver all essential nutrients in a convenient and affordable form. It's for people who want an efficient, reliable meal replacement without the hassle of traditional food preparation, focusing on health and sustainability.

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

We live and operate in Los Angeles, CA, and the company is based here after YC as well.

Explain your decision regarding location.

Los Angeles offers the right combination of access to food technology expertise, production facilities, and a diverse consumer market interested in sustainable food solutions, which suits our mission.

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 Soylent YC application?

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