Inside Silicon Valley’s most grueling ritual: Raising cash

Over the past 11 years, the incubator Y Combinator, which takes a 7 percent stake in the companies it invests in, has become one of the most important institutions in the region — hatching start-ups such as Dropbox, Reddit, Stripe and Airbnb with $120,000 in seed funding and matching them to investors. The three-month boot camp is also seen as bellwether for the valley’s evolution — on diversity, on start-up trends, and lately, for how the tech industry views itself in relationship to the wider world.

By Elizabeth Dwoskin

Full Story: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/08/29/inside-one-of-silicon-valleys-most-celebrated-rituals-raising-cash/?hpid=hp_hp-cards_hp-card-technology%3Ahomepage%2Fcard