As the famed early-stage accelerator ups the amount of startups it invests in each year, India has become a focus. In this summer鈥檚 batch, 12 startups were from India, compared to five from the same time period a year prior. Applications to the accelerator from India increased by 50 percent, too.

, a partner at YC and the previous founder of Homejoy, even lived in India for a month prior to the pitch day to 鈥済et a sense of what the Indian consumer was like.鈥� Then, Cheung and three other YC partners conducted 140 interviews with Indian startups from 鈥檚 headquarters, a YC alum backed by Facebook. About 8 percent of those startups were accepted.

Before we learn more about those startups, here鈥檚 a teaser for you: Cheung told me that India, like China, was previously known to 鈥渃opy cat things that worked in the U.S.鈥�

鈥淏ut now they鈥檙e distinctly not doing that, they鈥檙e coming out with these big products,鈥� she said during a phone call Wednesday.

Now, onto the big products.

The WhatsApp Wave

During YC Demo Day, a few founders cited WhatsApp as part of their business strategy, specifically its growth and influence within India.

wants to leverage WhatsApp to match low-skilled and skilled workers with on-demand companies that need labor. , the founder of the company, said WhatsApp has 400 million users in India, and 96 percent of smartphone users in the region use WhatsApp.

Cheung said that she always tells startups to 鈥渢ake advantage of what [is] in front of them.鈥� Since WhatsApp is allowing people to build atop them right now, now is the time to leverage the platform for customer acquisition, she added.

In some ways, it鈥檚 a gamble. Building your startup atop a social media platform is risky. At any given time, the company can stop sharing access to its API. It could, in theory, kill your business on a whim and get away with it. The concept isn鈥檛 crazy: , and Google鈥檚 also impacted competitors.

But Krishna assured me that he鈥檚 working with WhatsApp 鈥減retty closely鈥� to secure a solid relationship. If not, the 12 million on-demand workers, and 320 low-skilled workers, could lose the app.

also said during its presentation that it would acquire customers through to build out its online pharmacy in India, citing the messaging app鈥檚 prominence in the area.

Cheung said she thinks we鈥檙e going to see a 鈥渇lood of really big startups built on top of WhatsApp鈥� but that startups need to not be reliant on just one platform. Diversification equals protection.

The Indian Consumer

One surprise from pitch day in Bangalore, according to Cheung, was that Indian startups were straying from a once-normal stereotype: Global SaaS companies.

鈥淭hey鈥檙e building for the Indian consumer,鈥� she said.

Take , for example. The company is connecting gas stations to truck drivers, and delivers fuel directly to customers.聽CEO told me that he is offering an app to truck drivers that allows them to request gas delivery. There鈥檚 a live dashboard at their fingertips, he said.聽Plus, Gupta said, MyPetrolPump is helping everyone avoid fuel theft.

鈥淔uel theft happens here,鈥� he told me. 鈥淵ou鈥檒l find that drivers collude with operators of gas stations in India.鈥� MyPetrolPump managing that transaction will help create balance, he hopes. The company raised $1.6 million last month from Y Combinator and . Now, Gupta said he is working to raise a $10 million Series A round.

Subscribe to the 附近上门 Daily

Another consumer-friendly startup is . It wants to make podcasts more accessible and understandable to people around India. On stage during Demo Day, a co-founder said that half a billion people are coming online in India鈥攂ut there is no podcast platform that works well there.

鈥淪potify has no traction, and the only available audio content is on YouTube, which gives broken audio,鈥� the company said. So, they鈥檙e working with 2,500 creators to bring audio in every Indian language to the populace.

And with that we鈥檒l step back and take a balcony view of YC鈥檚 tagline: 鈥淢ake something people want.鈥� It seems from this recent crop of startups, that鈥檚 exactly what India’s entrepreneurs have been doing.

Illustration Credit:聽

Subscribe to the 附近上门 Daily

One startup wanted to . Another wanted to . And the other, naturally, wanted to . Of course, many cited Stanford to prove that they are worth venture capital money.

It was a with individually pitching their companies to a room full of investors, entrepreneurs, and journalists. The startups are fresh off of a 12-week program filled with intensive workshops and networking.

So let鈥檚 look under the hood for a minute and check out some of the highlights.

The Portfolio Pleasers

Before Y Combinator kicked off its two-day event, CEO said one of the biggest advantages of YC is access to customers. In other words, a YC company can tap into the network of thousands of YC companies.

But just in case that network isn鈥檛 enough, a handful of startups during Demo Day pitched their companies as beneficial to the portfolios of the dozens of venture capitalists in the room. Startups working to help startups is reminiscent of Brex, a credit card for startups and previous YC company.

Another startup that falls in this bucket is Embrace, which monitors social applications. Embrace co-founder told investors 鈥渁ll your portfolio companies have mobile apps.鈥�

鈥淭hey all have bugs,鈥� he said, before leaving the stage. 鈥淲e鈥檒l come and fix them.鈥�

There was also Vouch, which sells insurance to startups, and Tandem, which offers a virtual office for remote teams and scored venture capital funding fresh out of the batch. The company raised $7.5 million in a round led by Andressen Horowitz, .

The YC Network: Friends Or Foes?

I wonder how many YC startups are taught to cite other YC startups as proof of their potential.聽Having a legacy to point to helps, I presume, when you鈥檙e a founder tackling a niche area.

, which wants to broaden access to elder care services, said that it was connected with previous batch members also working to help the elderly.

, the co-founder of ReverCare, told me he was connected to Papa, a Y Combinator company from last year that offers 鈥済randkids on-demand.鈥�

Beyond that, said it was (YC S2010) for the Philippines. said it was the (YC S2017) . said it was the (YC W18) for real estate.

Arguably the most famous YC grad, , isn鈥檛 a hurdle to Globe, a company that unlocks space by the hour for business professionals.

鈥�,鈥� said CEO and co-founder multiple times from the stage. With Globe, users can book a room in someone鈥檚 home on the fly to nap or take a business call.

I caught up with Bamfo after his pitch. He said that isn鈥檛 a competitor, just an example of an addressable market.

鈥淥ur users use us twice a week,鈥� he said. 鈥淎irbnb users use them twice a year.鈥�

Ironically, the summer batch kicked off its speaker series with a talk from Airbnb鈥檚 founders.

A Bigger Focus On India

This year, instead of offering to to vet them as a potential batch member, YC went to India. This year鈥檚 batch had 11 India-based companies – an intentional focus for YC.

wants to help trucks get fuel faster. Also, around India, gasoline theft is an issue – there鈥檚 a black market of cylinders, . The addressable market, the company said, is $6 billion. It is currently serving 1,400 customers.

Then there鈥檚 , which is using to connect for-hire workers to on-demand companies. The company is hoping to tap into the 12 million on-demand workers hired in India every year, and then the 320 million low-skilled workers. It is currently making $30,000 in revenue, according to founder .

Krishna told me he is working closely with the team to further build out the company. In India, he said the messaging system is a core part of people鈥檚 lives.

Both YC CEO Seibel and YC President said their focus on India, and broader South East Asia, will continue.

This brings me to my next and final section. Seemingly as with every Demo Day, there are some startups that feel untraditional. And during a day with hours of pitches, I welcomed them with live tweets.

Finally, Some Honorable Mentions

A list of miscellaneous startups that left an impression on Day 2:

• offers a monthly subscription to offset your carbon footprint. Instead of going vegan or buying a Tesla, the team suggested users subscribe to a $20/month model that plants trees based on your carbon footprint. The company is marketing itself to employers as a potential employee benefit, and has 503 paying subscriptions so far.

• wants to help millennials feel less lonely by offering recommendations and guidance .
• matches individuals with similar fetishes, with the hope of capitalizing on a missing element of conventional dating services. After launching three days ago, the company claims it has 751 users, and cites a potential $1.25 billion dollar industry.

And that鈥檚 a quick view at Y Combinator鈥檚 largest batch yet. More when one of the companies raises, becomes the next , or beats it.

Photo by me.

The company , valuing itself at $1.1 billion, post-money. Brex raised . But all that is old-hat now. There’s more money coming in, so let’s get our bearings.

Just Brex It

Here’s the company’s narrative as it stands today: Brex, a -backed startup, is one of the fastest-ever companies to a $1 billion valuation. And, even more, it’s managed its growth and hot pricetag by doing two things that buck conventional wisdom. Namely, it has spent money on old-fashioned advertising and it’s building a business by lending to startups.

Each of those choices is not as weird as you’d imagine. I spoke with Brex CEO earlier this year, affording me the chance to ask about each. Regarding the bus stop ads and other sorts of IRL advertising, Dubugras said that cheap inventory is good. That’s frankly hard to argue with as other startups try to eke out positive ROAS on the well-wrung Facebook ad market.

And regarding lending to startups, Brex has a good view into the businesses it lends to, so it isn’t blind; Brex can remove access to credit if a customer is running light on capital.

Now, that’s just what I understand about the company. Reality is never neat, and you can’t accurately summarize risks and their posited amelioration in 87 words or whatever, but you get the idea.

So Hot

Brex’s growth figures must be bonkers for it to manage to raise as much as it has. The firm is hot.

So, we’ll have more on the round as we learn more about it. What we can tell for now is that the Brex boom in the startup world must have been something to behold from an operating perspective. And on that theme, I’ll leave you with this riff from :

The company鈥檚 pace of growth is unheard of, even in Silicon Valley where inflated valuations and outsized rounds are the norm. Why? Brex has tapped into a market dominated by legacy players in dire need of technological innovation and, of course, startup founders always need access to credit. That, coupled with the fact that it鈥檚 capitalized on YC鈥檚 network of hundreds of startup founders 鈥� i.e. Brex customers 鈥� has accelerated its path to a multi-billion-dollar price tag.

Illustration: .