BlockBeats news, on May 6, renowned startup accelerator Y Combinator will hold its first in-person interviews in New York City, focusing on fintech and cryptocurrency startups, aiming to support more companies in this field. YC stated on Wednesday: “This is the first time YC is bringing a sector-specific interview process offline in this way, as they are meeting founders as key ecosystems are forming.”
A YC spokesperson stated that interviews will be held in person in New York on May 21. YC’s standard investment terms for selected startups are $500,000 for 7% equity. Since introducing this option earlier this year, startups may also choose to receive funding in the form of Circle’s stablecoin, USDC. The YC Winter 2026 batch includes several crypto and fintech startups, including Sponge Wallet, a financial infrastructure platform for the AI agent economy; Unifold, a crypto on-ramp service; Sequence Markets, a unified platform for crypto, real-world assets, and prediction markets; and Valence, a cross-platform trading platform for prediction markets.
Since its founding in 2005, YC has invested in over 5,000 companies with a combined valuation exceeding $1 trillion. Its portfolio includes OpenAI, Airbnb, Stripe, and Reddit. YC’s first crypto investment was Coinbase in 2012, and since then, it has invested in over 150 crypto and fintech companies, including the prediction market platform Kalshi, the DeFi trading platform Axiom, and the NFT marketplace OpenSea. Last year, YC partnered with Coinbase to support startups building on-chain infrastructure, referring to this shift as “Fintech 3.0.”