Upverter YC Application

Winter 2011Acquired

Upverter went through Y Combinator in the Winter 2011 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 2011
Industry: B2BEngineering, Product and Design
Team size: 11
Status: Acquired
Launched: 2012

Founders

Stephen HamerFounder

What Upverter does

Upverter is social making. The best way to collaborate with others. Discover, share and work on hardware. Unlike existing design tools, which are isolated and single user, Upverter is highly integrated, inherently collaborative and accessible anywhere in the world. With Upverter design teams, contract designers and grassroots innovators are leveraging existing design content and focus on building next generation hardware instead of wasting time duplicating work, sourcing parts or dealing with manufacturers.

Upverter's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Upverter, Winter 2011 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Upverter

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

The future of hardware design. A marketplace for hardware engineering

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

We built Upverter, a web-based hardware design platform that lets teams collaborate in real time. Unlike traditional isolated CAD tools, our product integrates design, parts sourcing, and manufacturing prep in one place. It's designed for hardware engineers, contract designers, and grassroots innovators who want to share and build on existing designs rather than starting from scratch.

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

We live in Toronto, Canada, and the company is based there now. After YC, we would continue to base the company here.

Explain your decision regarding location.

Toronto has a strong hardware engineering talent pool and a supportive local tech community. We're close to our early users and can operate effectively here while participating in YC remotely or traveling to the Bay Area as needed.

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 Upverter YC application?

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