Check Out the 28 Crypto Startups in Y Combinator’s Latest Batch

• Y Combinator, a startup accelerator, hosted its biannual Demo Day on March 29 and 30.
• This latest batch was the largest yet, with 414 startups from six continents.
• Crypto and blockchain startups were a major theme, more than double from the last batch.

 Y Combinator’s first Demo Day of 2022 debuted virtually on March 29 and 30, and the Winter 2022 batch, with 414 startups participating from six continents, was the largest class yet. 

While crypto was a big theme for YC in 2021, this last class was even more loaded. There were more than twice as many startups focused on Web3, blockchain, and crypto than in the previous class, with 28 companies in this cohort.

The famed accelerator hosts two batches of startups a year for a three-month program that’s part startup school and part mentorship. About 10,000 companies typically apply, and over 17,000 companies applied for this batch, YC said.

The program has ballooned in recent years after going virtual during the pandemic. Some founders and VCs have questioned whether the program is as prestigious as it once was, and whether the startups are worth their ever-increasing price tag. For this latest class, YC offered both virtual and in-person experiences for founders who chose to relocate to Silicon Valley, but relocation wasn’t required. 

Crypto companies weren’t the largest category. Startups selling cloud software on a subscription model, or software as a service, were — with 144 startups, YC’s online directory showed.

But the growth in this category is yet another signal that Silicon Valley is still in the early stages of its big ambitions to remake the banking and finance industries, as it’s done with advertising, retail, and communications. 

Insider rounded up the 28 crypto, blockchain, and Web3 companies that presented at YC’s Winter 2022 Demo Day to offer a peek at the type of financial technologies the tech industry is cooking.