WorldCover YC Application

Winter 2016Inactive

WorldCover went through Y Combinator in the Winter 2016 batch as a Fintech 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 2016
Industry: FintechInsurance
Team size: 20
Status: Inactive
Launched: 2015

Founders

Christopher SheehanFounder/CEO

What WorldCover does

WorldCover offers peer-to-peer investments that provide insurance to the global poor. We connect a growing pool of investors who seek uncorrelated investment returns and impact from their capital with a huge and growing need for natural disaster insurance in the developing world. WorldCover's platform improves food and income security for smallholder farmers in developing countries. More than 70% of the 2.5 billion people living at the “base of the pyramid” throughout the world rely on agriculture for income and sustenance. Farmers face a number of major risks to their livelihoods which they cannot control. Insurance gives them a sense of security even if they have a bad harvest, allowing them to improve their diets, invest in their farms, and send their children to school. In an increasingly interconnected world, diversified markets are becoming harder and harder to find. WorldCover's investment products offer both retail and professional investors attractive yet uncorrelated returns with the world's financial markets.

WorldCover's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

WorldCover, Winter 2016 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

WorldCover

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Funding platform for global insurance

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

We built a platform that connects investors with insurance risk in developing countries, primarily focused on crop insurance. Our product lets investors provide capital that backs natural disaster insurance policies for smallholder farmers. This protects farmers from losing their livelihoods after bad harvests and delivers uncorrelated returns to investors seeking diversification away from traditional markets.

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

We live in New York City and plan to keep the company based here after YC.

Explain your decision regarding location.

New York is where we built our network of financial and impact investors and where the team is located. It also positions us close to key partners and investors interested in emerging market financial products.

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 WorldCover YC application?

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