Yup. Know Y combinator funded them. Actually, brings up another point. Curious what people think about applying to ycombinator if they have funded a potential competitor of your company in the past??

PG answered this in a post that I cannot find, but they don't share info between companies and they generally don't fund companies that do EXACTLY what someone else before did (e.g. Weebly again).

Applying is okay though.

I don't think I said we wouldn't fund a co that did exactly the same thing as a previous one. The real answer is that we rarely (never, so far) get two companies doing exactly the same thing. They may be in the same general business, but they tend to each have their own approach to it, and any good market has room for multiple companies approaching it from different directions.

E.g. Snipshot and Splashup. Both are web-based imaged editors, but the similarity ends there. Snipshot is an easy editor for end users. Splashup is Photoshop.

How long do you think it would take for YC to run out of markets if they limited it to one company per? It's fine, unless you're aiming for a direct ripoff (at least, that's my opinion! ;-) )

YC is an investment company. They certainly do help their investments to do well, but I don't think they would keep from funding a similar company if they think it will increase their potential return.

After all, they expect a good deal of their companies to fail. If they didn't fail because of the idea then doubling up through a similar company is a good way to increase their odds. They might not fund competitors in the same cycle though.

There has been discussion about this, and replies by PG, but I failed to find the threads. The outcome was that YC can fund two companies in the same field.