Y Combinator launches free online Startup Investor School to train new startup investors

Y Combinator (YC), one of the the world’s top startup accelerators, announced yesterday the launch of a free program called Startup Investor School.  It is scheduled to be a 4-day course that is held live in Y Combinator’s office in Mountain View, CA and live-streamed around the world. According to Ralston, a partner at Y Combinator, the goal of the program is to answer many of the questions that can keep potential angel investors from taking the plunge of backing companies. “I know there’s demand to be angel investors, but people I talk to say, ‘I don’t know how to get started,’” says Ralston. “If there’s more seed money available, more startups will have a chance.”

The goal is also to teach new startup investors the basics of seed (early) stage startup investing. The company’s believe is that, the more great seed investors there are the more chance startups have to succeed. YC wants to increase the chance of success for new startup investors by teaching them some non-intuitive things to do to be a great seed investor and  how to address the challenges of launching new startups.

According to the information posted on the site, The Startup Investor School is a free, 4-day course designed to educate early stage investors interested in investing in startups. We’ll cover the fundamentals of investing, from investing instruments to legal and accounting basics to evaluating startups and managing deal flow. Our hope is that more people, from a wide range of backgrounds will consider investing in startups and that those who do will be better at it.

The course will run from March 5th, 2018 through March 8th, 2018. The course will be offered live online and in-person in Mountain View. All of the course content, including the curriculum, lectures and other resources will be made available to the public once the course ends. The class leads up to Y Combinator’s famous Demo Days on March 19 and 20, where YC’s latest batch of startups present their companies to a room full of investors. All accredited investors who complete the program will be given access to the Y Combinator Winter 2018 Demo Day livestream, and there will also be a limited number of spots available to attend the the Demo Day in person for investors who complete the course in person.

The application for the course is now open. According to the statement on the site, “The program is open to all accredited investors (Accreditation is based upon SEC rules found here. You will be required to formally attest to your accreditation.).” Y Combinator will let the applicants know by February 26, 2018, PST, if they were accepted into Startup Investor School.

Click on the image below to apply for the program.

In 2005, Y Combinator developed a new model of startup funding. Twice a year they invest a small amount of money ($120K) in a large number of startups (most recently 68). The startups move to Silicon Valley for 3 months. The YC partners work closely with each company to get them into the best possible shape and refine their pitch to investors. Each cycle culminates in Demo Day, when the startups present their business plans to a carefully selected, audience of investors.

Y Combinator has supported and helped a lot startup investors in overcoming the challenges of launching their startups since its inception in 2005. As of 2017, Y Combinator had invested in about 1,450 companies including Dropbox, Airbnb, Coinbase, Stripe, Reddit, Zenefits, BuildZoom, Instacart, Twitch.tv, Machine Zone, Weebly, Paribus, and Chinese startup Raven Tech. The combined market capitalization of its companies was over $80 billion.