Here’s a crazy statistic: More than half of the companies in Y Combinator’s latest cohort were accepted to the accelerator with only an idea, no minimum viable product or revenue strategy needed.

Fast forward to today, where we’ll see how the individuals behind those ideas are thinking about the future of how we work, eat, connect and build. YC Demo Day is always a window into a subset of entrepreneurs, used to help us better understand how this world may play into the kinds of companies entering the market.

Before we get into some standout companies, here’s some background on the latest batch: The most common verticals were developer operations, open source and artificial intelligence. On the diversity front, YC says that 17% of the Winter 2023 companies have a woman founder, which is up from 15% the previous batch prior.

OK, let’s start! Below you’ll find our favorite startups from the first half of Demo Day. Now, there’s a reason we are journalists, not investors, so let’s be clear: What we’ve written on the startups listed below are not meant as advice to join or back a startup; we’re highlighting which companies stand out to us during the rapid fire of pitching on Y Combinator’s 36th Demo Day.

Our favorite startups from YC’s Winter 2022 Demo Day — Part 1 by Natasha Mascarenhas originally published on TechCrunch