Finding investors and mentors for your startup can sometimes be an insurmountable challenge. Discovering people who align with your values and understand your trajectory demands great effort and time that some founders simply don’t have. This is why startup accelerators, otherwise referred to as seed accelerators, are an important resource for startups, and can help founders realize solutions and an even greater potential.

Y-Combinator, (YC) established in 2005, is the progenitor of startup accelerators. Due to it being the first of its kind, YC was early in cultivating a network of industry experts and professionals, as well as founders and CEO’s of market leading organizations. To give some perspective on the scope of YC’s programme, Twitch, Stripe, AirBnB, Reddit, Coinbase, and Doordash are among the plethora of companies that completed it and received funding through the programme. The collective valuation of YC funded companies (just over 1,900) is over $100 billion.

By the end of 2014, a total of 700 companies and 1,400 founders had completed YC’s programme, according to Inc. The Inc article continues, highlighting core reasons why YC is the elite startup accelerator.

Among these reasons are; less than three percent of startups that apply to YC’s program are accepted, meaning that being accepted is a milestone achievement in and of itself. Another reason is that by being accepted, startups have access to its extensive and invaluable alumni network, and that a startup’s valuation instantly increases upon acceptance at a YC program. The prestige of this elite startup accelerator is recognized globally, encouraging VC funds and YC funded startups to foster strong relationships. 

The YC program offers startups across all stages the opportunity to  within just three months. It focuses on helping startups create better products focused on their market segment and targeted users, as well as develop an environment to better attract the right investors. Within those three months, startup founders interact with each other, with accredited founders of established and successful companies, as well as with investors. 

The eleven weeks lead up to what is known as “Demo Day”, where startups present their businesses to investors and the press. This process leads to startups achieving a higher valuation, ready to hit the markets with their newly founded knowledge and expertise. Ultimately, as the Demo Day concludes, investors and founders connect to forge relationships, and investors look to back startups that align with them.

In recent years, there have even been Cypriot founders that completed the YC programme. Namely, Terra and Malloc.

Malloc was founded in Cyprus in 2020, and incorporated in the US in 2021, by Maria Terzi,  Liza Charalambous and Artemis Kontou. Their vision and purpose is to help people and companies protect their data and regain their online privacy. The focus of Malloc is on cybersecurity, where their app provides high levels of spyware protection and online privacy to individuals and software solutions for governments, app owners and teams across businesses. This superhero-like app has raised funds from the Urban Innovation Fund, Dragon Capital, Emelline Ventures, as well as support from YC of around $2 million.

The other Cypriot founded YC backed startup,Terra, founded by Kyriacos Eleftheriou in 2021, is an API app that connects to your wearables, focusing on uniting all health related apps and data. As described by Terra, “think if Soptify and Netflix created music and movies based on your heart rate, and stress levels, in real-time. We want to enable apps to achieve that reality, through our super easy-to-use API.” They were supported through funding from Tier 1 VC funds including General Catalyst, Samsung Next, and Next Ventures, as well as completing YC’s programme in 2021 and has successfully raised $2.8 million in funding.

Kyriacos Eleftheriou was recently interviewed for a second time with FutureTalks, where he shared insights in starting, maintaining, and scaling a business, as well as intelligently selecting investors who will encourage the growth of a startup. Kyriacos also discussed how YC supported Terra, by introducing him to valuable mentors who knew what doors to open, and helped in creating valuable synergies. 

He mentioned that his most valuable takeaway from YC was not the funding received, but rather the access to extremely valuable advice and guidance from other market experts and leaders. The interview concluded with his advice to anyone looking to embark on their startup journey: take risks. More importantly, take risks at the right times. For example, joining a startup when you have just graduated is much safer and more rewarding, than doing so in later years when you may have significant obligations that must be tended to.

Alternatively, Kyriacos suggests that starting a business, whether it may fail or not, is an additional key avenue of learning. Joining a startup and starting a business as early as possible contribute to an exponential learning curve that is far more enriching and valuable; doing is a better ‘teacher’ than academic learning.

In regard to a Cypriot startup’s journey, we spoke with Maria Terzi from Malloc to share her key takeaways from Y-Combinator and to offer advice to entrepreneurs and founders. She stated that “the three most impactful takeaways from YC refer to the importance of talking with your customers, launching fast, and being 100% there and being consistent. It is imperative that you understand better than anyone else how you can help your customers, and actually do it.” She then quoted Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, to emphasize the idea of launching fast, “if you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.”

On her final takeaway from YC, being 100% there and being consistent, Maria Terzi highlighted the importance of habits. “Define your metrics, set weekly goals, and measure your progress towards them. This habit will keep you going and also help you to measure slight changes in your performance, giving a clear understanding of what you’re doing well, and react fast to change things when they’re not headed in a good direction.”

As for her advice to entrepreneurs and founders, it’s about conserving your energy within you while emitting your creativity out to the world. “Don’t be limited by the invisible constraints of your country. Build for the world. Filter the opinion you receive from other people. Not all people have walked the journey you want to walk.”

If this article highlights anything, it’s that even our small rock of an island is home to some of the world’s star innovators and entrepreneurs. From bringing an idea to fruition, to taking it to the world’s most prestigious startup accelerator, and finally securing funds and resources to share it with the world, these creators, like many others, have set their sights on forging a path for themselves, and for Cypriot founders and entrepreneurs, towards a future of greater opportunity.