Y Combinator's 1st-ever start-up school in India begins this week
13 Apr 2026

Y Combinator, one of the world's leading start-up accelerators, will hold its first-ever Startup School in India.

The event will be held on April 18 at White Feather in Bengaluru's Electronic City.

Designed for early-stage founders, the school offers a free online course and access to a global community that provides guidance, mentorship, and growth opportunities.

YC has funded over 5,000 start-ups globally
Accelerator history

San Francisco-based Y Combinator has been running for 15 years and has launched successful companies like Airbnb, Dropbox, and Stripe.

In India, it has funded startups such as Zepto, Groww, and Meesho.

The acceptance rate for YC's Startup School is a mere 1-2%, having funded around 5,000 start-ups globally.

Pre-party for YC partners
Networking event

The YC Startup School will also host an exclusive pre-party for its partners: Jared Friedman, Ankit Gupta, and Jon Xu.

The event will bring together 2,000 top founders, builders, and engineers from across India.

They will showcase their agents and AI platforms developed through "vibe coding," a practice where natural language guides AI generation to focus on outcomes rather than manual syntax.

Young innovators at the event
Innovation spotlight

Among the attendees is Surya Uthkarsha, a 14-year-old student from Bengaluru. He is the Head of Growth at Edza AI, a personal AI-based tutor for students.

Uthkarsha believes that future generations will not understand the concept of a 9-5 job as it is easy to build products these days.

Other young innovators include Patna's Gyanshu Pathak and Jehanabad's Aditya Kumar who are working on innovative platforms in AI and healthcare, respectively.

Innovative projects from young builders
Project diversity

The YC event will also host a range of innovative projects from young builders.

These include Studojo, a project helping college students with internships and networking, and an IoT device builder who can turn text into a full IoT device.

Other projects include AI-powered legal research for India's law firms and a personalized AI language-speaking tutor.