Y Combinator Unleashes Record Class of Startups

This week, Y Combinator held what's become a twice-annual ritual for the granddaddy of startup incubators—Demo Day. This crop of 63 companies was nearly 50 percent bigger than the last class, and that one was bigger than the one before.

With two-minute presentations per company, they introduced themselves to the media and potential investors Tuesday and Wednesday. But only some of them were really ready for prime time: just 32 had actual products to show, and 33 asked to stay off the record.

Here's how TechCrunch's Jason Kincaid described the scene:

Though there were more companies than ever, the quality was still very high—I suspect this batch will have more home runs than any previous batch. Y Combinator cofounder and partner Paul Graham said that the acceptance rate was still a low 3 percent, but that the incubator is now receiving a huge number of applications, many of which are promising—hence the increased class size. In light of the growth of the program, Y Combinator decided to knock down a wall in their building and boost the size of their event room.

Some of the companies that appealed most to Mashable’s Jennifer Van Grove included: Kicksend, which allows someone to send files of any size digitally; and PicPlum, which automatically prints and sends photos to friends and family at a cost of $7 per recipient per month.

Allan Grant, cofounder of Curebit and himself a Y Combinator graduate said he was impressed by Aisle 50, which helps grocery stores create custom webpages for promoted items. The company was founded by former Forbes journalist Christopher Steiner, along with Riley Scott and George Korsnick.

Xconomy offers this list of other companies of interest:

• Can’t Wait: An iPhone app that allows users to browse movie trailers.
• Codecademy: Online lessons for novices to learn to write computer code.
• Debt Eye: Automated credit counseling.
• Double Recall: Brand advertising firm for Web and mobile.
• Envolve: Customizable chat system for websites.
• Interstate: Tools for software product management.
• Interviewstreet: Pairs programmers and companies.
• Launchpad Toys: Allows Lego-like building online.
• Marketbrief: Scans SEC documents and makes them easily available.
• Mixrank: Allows companies to monitor other companies’ market testing.
• MobileWorks: Crowdsourcing speech recognition and translation.
• Mongo HQ: Open-source database company.
• Munch On Me: Daily deals for specific restaurant dishes.
• Opez: Allows customers to review individual bartenders or waitresses.
• PageLever: Analytics for social media.
• Parse: Data storage for app developers.
• Proxino: Allows developers to watch code being executed in the cloud.
• Quartzy: Online marketplace for medical supplies.
• Science Exchange: Marketplace to outsource science experiments.

For more details about Y Combinator, click here for a Portfolio.com report.

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Kent Bernhard Jr. is News Editor of Portfolio.com