YC has YC Fellowship, which doesn't require startups to be located in SV. YC also used to maintain an official program in Cambridge, but they shut it down after a few years IIRC.
Everything YC does should be viewed through the reality that YC is an investor. Their interests are not necessarily aligned with the interests of founders, and as the party with the leverage, they can mandate that people move to SV solely based on their personal convenience.
I personally see starting in SV as more of a detriment than a benefit, but then, I'm not trying to start a company that depends on venture capital. In non-SV locations where I know some startup people, VC-backed startups would routinely fly out to SV for pitches and the like, and many had an easy time finding investors after being roundly rejected by the VCs in their particular area.
Investors really don't seem to realize the treasure trove that could be available to them if they broadened their horizons a little bit, but maybe that's because there's really no incentive for them to disrupt what they have going on now. Everything is quite convenient for them with SV as the nexus.
They folded YC Fellowship last year. In some sense they replaced it with the MOOC but the programs look pretty different.
Also, there are plenty of investors that realize this, you just have to look for them. For example, Drive Capital in Columbus, OH was founded by ex-Sequoia in 2013 and has raised over $500M since.
Everything YC does should be viewed through the reality that YC is an investor. Their interests are not necessarily aligned with the interests of founders, and as the party with the leverage, they can mandate that people move to SV solely based on their personal convenience.
I personally see starting in SV as more of a detriment than a benefit, but then, I'm not trying to start a company that depends on venture capital. In non-SV locations where I know some startup people, VC-backed startups would routinely fly out to SV for pitches and the like, and many had an easy time finding investors after being roundly rejected by the VCs in their particular area.
Investors really don't seem to realize the treasure trove that could be available to them if they broadened their horizons a little bit, but maybe that's because there's really no incentive for them to disrupt what they have going on now. Everything is quite convenient for them with SV as the nexus.