Since its founding in 2005, Y Combinator (YC) has established itself as a powerhouse in the world of startup accelerators, fostering the growth of over 4,000 startups. Many of these have become well-known names across a range of industries. Y Combinator’s impact on the startup ecosystem is substantial, offering a nurturing environment for innovation and the entrepreneurial drive.

In our previous article, we examined the Top Private YC Companies by Valuation. Now, we turn our attention to the YC Top Companies List by Revenue. 

A startup is designed to grow fast, and the best metric to gauge that growth is revenue. After all, you make what you measure. And in today’s uncertain economic climate, when prudence around fundraising and valuations make sense, it’s especially worth shining a light on revenue as the clearest signal of a startup’s success.

Y Combinator

We’ll explore how these successful companies have chosen their names and domains, shedding light on the strategies behind their branding and market presence. This analysis aims to provide insights for new startups on the importance of effective branding and the role it plays in a company’s success.

Namepicks

Bird

Bird is a next-generation CRM platform for marketing, sales, and payments, empowering brands to grow efficiently through personalised interactions on Email, SMS, and WhatsApp. It offers an extensive array of features, including forms, customer data, automation, and template management, and powers 5 trillion annual interactions worldwide.

Bird’s mission is to create a world where communicating with a business is as easy as talking with a friend. We power communication between businesses and their customers — across any channel, always with the right context, and on every corner of the planet. If you’ve ever ordered takeaway, returned a package, contacted customer service, or requested a login code, it’s almost guaranteed your interactions have been powered by Bird’s technology.

Bird.com

Founded in 2011 as MessageBird, the company rebranded to Bird in February 2024, following its acquisition of the Bird.com domain years earlier. 

Dictionary word .com domains epitomise simplicity, authority, and accessibility — key elements in fostering consumer trust and brand recognition. These types of domains are highly valued as strategic assets, significantly boosting a brand’s visibility and credibility on the global stage. For a company like Bird, investing in the right domain represents a savvy, forward-looking move, aligning with its ambition to be an industry frontrunner.

Benchling

Benchling is a cloud-based platform for life sciences research and development, providing biotech and pharmaceutical companies with a unified solution for managing their scientific data. 

Founded in 2012 in response to a clear need for modern technology and tools in scientific research, Benchling addressed a significant gap in the market. At that time, the lack of software capable of supporting biological research meant that scientists were forced to rely on inefficient methods like spreadsheets and paper lab notebooks. These outdated approaches made it challenging to capture data, refer back to it, and share it across teams. Benchling’s platform revolutionised this process, simplifying data management and collaboration in scientific research.

The name “Benchling” refers to a scientist’s lab bench — their primary place of work — where Benchling is a scientist’s helper that’s always by their side. Benchling is more than just a tool used every once in a while; it’s a place where scientists work and collaborate day in and day out, as we sit on the forefront of scientific progress.

Neena Parikh, Benchling

Benchling can be found on the exact brand match domain name Benchling.com. Investing in a .com domain name that matches their brand name ensures their brand is secure online and makes it easy for their customers, business partners, and investors to reach them.

DoorDash

DoorDash is a leading provider of food delivery services, facilitating the connection between merchants and consumers through its platform.

In 2012, Stanford students Evan Moore, Andy Fang, Stanley Tang, and Tony Xu were immersed in developing technology for small business owners. While testing their app with various businesses, including a bakery in Palo Alto, California, they realised their solution didn’t address the bakery’s most critical need: efficient delivery of orders. In January 2013, they took action, launching PaloAltoDelivery.com in Palo Alto, California, to address this gap in the market. Early that year, Y Combinator injected $120,000 in seed funding, prompting the company’s rebranding to the more captivating DoorDash. Since then, DoorDash has garnered substantial funding, accumulating a total of $2.5 billion across 13 rounds.

At DoorDash, our mission is to empower and grow local economies by opening the doorways that connect us to each other. When consumers get their goods, local merchants get business, and Dashers get paid.

DoorDash

DoorDash operates under the domain name DoorDash.com, a strategic choice that significantly contributes to enhancing its global recognition and fortifying its professional image. This domain simplifies access for users worldwide and serves as a powerful branding tool, reinforcing DoorDash’s presence in the competitive food delivery industry.

Podium

Podium is a software-as-a-service platform, focused on enhancing businesses’ online reputations. It offers an integrated solution where users can manage various business interactions, including reviews, texts, chats, and payments, all within one comprehensive application. 

Founded in 2014 by Eric Rea and Dennis Steele, the company originated from a practical need faced by Eric’s father, who ran a tire shop. Despite having numerous satisfied customers, his business was disproportionately impacted by a few negative online reviews. This situation led to the creation of Podium, a venture aimed at helping small businesses like his father’s to enhance their online reputation.  The initial product was designed to simplify the process of gathering customer reviews, making it as effortless as sending a text. 

Initially named RepDrive, the company rebranded to Podium in 2015. Today, Podium’s influence extends far beyond its original goal of managing online reviews. It now empowers over 100,000 local businesses, facilitating millions of customer interactions and payment transactions. 

As we set out to solve the same problem for local businesses everywhere, we realized that messaging with customers wasn’t just the better way to get reviews—it’s the better way to do business. We’ve since built a multi-product platform that’s modernizing the way local business gets done.

Podium’s team

Podium ensures its global accessibility with its premium domain, Podium.com. Dictionary word .com domains, such as Podium.com, are coveted assets in the business world for their inherent simplicity, memorability, and authoritative presence. Such domains are highly sought after for their ability to provide instant brand recognition and credibility.

Reddit

Reddit, an American social media platform known for news aggregation, content rating, and as a discussion forum, was launched in 2005 by entrepreneurs Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian. It has grown into a significant online community where registered users, termed “Redditors,” share various content forms—ranging from links, text posts, and images to videos. These submissions are subject to upvotes or downvotes by other members, influencing their visibility. Content is organised into user-created “communities” or “subreddits,” each focusing on specific topics or interests. Posts with a high number of upvotes can ascend to the top of their respective subreddit and, with significant traction, even reach the site’s front page. 

One of the most important points I’d like to make today is that Reddit is a platform built by its users. My favourite analogy for Reddit is that of a city. Cities are physical things, but they’re really these living organisms created by their citizens. I think Reddit is very much the same. We’re a platform and tech company on one hand, but on the other it’s a living organism, this democratic living organism, created by its users.

Steve Huffman, CEO of Reddit for The Verge

The brand name “Reddit” derives from the phrase “I read it,” reflecting the platform’s nature of sharing and discussing information. The company became publicly held in 2024.

Emphasising its global presence, Reddit uses the exact brand match .com domain Reddit.com, signifying its international appeal and accessibility. With ownership of over 7,200 domain names, Reddit demonstrates the importance of a strong domain strategy. This extensive collection of domains protects the Reddit brand and boosts its visibility and accessibility in various regions and markets, a vital move for a company with a global user base.

Highlights

98% of the YC top companies by Revenue operate under a .com domain name. Customers worldwide naturally tend to trust .com as it has been dominating the internet for decades. 

46 of these top companies have invested in exact brand match (EBM) .com domain names. This strategic choice is crucial in enhancing online trust and credibility, both key factors in building enduring customer relationships and gaining a competitive edge. EBM domains simplify the process for customers to locate and recall a company, potentially boosting engagement and conversion rates.

None of the companies on the list has included a hyphen in its domain name. One of the downsides of using a hyphen in a domain name is that adding it to your domain name makes it harder to reach when typing.

While we make every effort to ensure the data on our site is accurate, complete, and up-to-date, we cannot guarantee its reliability. Our data is provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as legal, financial, or other advice. We strongly recommend that you independently verify any information before relying on it.

Whether you’re a small business owner or a large corporation, a premium domain name can help boost your brand and increase your online presence. If you’re ready to take the next step, contact us to learn more about our premium domain name options and how they can benefit your business.

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