Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Smartfin VS Y-Combinator

Compare Smartfin VS Y-Combinator and see what are their differences

Smartfin logo Smartfin

Experience a fast & easy way to research companies, with 30+ years of financial data, key metrics, and insights for humans. Build watchlists, track updates, and stay ahead with real-time alerts, earnings reports, and more!

Y-Combinator logo Y-Combinator

Y Combinator provides seed funding for startups.
  • Smartfin Track stocks with deep insights, key metrics, and performance scores
    Track stocks with deep insights, key metrics, and performance scores //
    2025-03-15
  • Smartfin Scores for value, profit, growth, health metrics & easy-to-understand insights
    Scores for value, profit, growth, health metrics & easy-to-understand insights //
    2025-03-15
  • Smartfin 30+ years of financial statemets and key metrics with interactive charts
    30+ years of financial statemets and key metrics with interactive charts //
    2025-03-15
  • Smartfin All the companies you care about, in one place, your watchlists
    All the companies you care about, in one place, your watchlists //
    2025-03-15
  • Smartfin All major events for the companies in your watchlist in a single table
    All major events for the companies in your watchlist in a single table //
    2025-03-15
  • Smartfin Choose between light and dark theme
    Choose between light and dark theme //
    2025-03-15

Smartfin is your all-in-one stock research platform, designed for everyday investors who want smarter, faster, and easier investing decisions—without a finance PhD.

With real-time alerts, personalized watchlists, company updates, and interactive insights, Smartfin helps you stay ahead effortlessly. SMartfin analyzes stocks for you, providing key valuation insights to make informed choices with confidence.

Beyond data, our vision is to empower users with essential investing knowledge, making research intuitive and accessible. Whether you're a beginner or an experienced investor, Smartfin helps you invest smarter.

  • Y-Combinator Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-25

Smartfin

Website
smartf.in
$ Details
freemium
Platforms
Google Chrome Safari Brave Edge Firefox
Release Date
2025 March

Y-Combinator

Pricing URL
-
$ Details
-
Platforms
-
Release Date
-

Smartfin features and specs

  • Insights for humans
    Easy-to-understand company insights. Breakdown into three categories for easy filtering.
  • Interactive visualizations
    Access 30+ years of financial statements and key metrics. Choose between yearly and quarterly data. Easily compare between metrics.
  • The most important metrics, scored
    Each financial metric is given a score. Divided into four categories: value, profit, growth, health. Historic performance available with a click.
  • Your watchlists, your way
    Organize the companies you track in multiple watchlists. Quick access to all important metrics.
  • All your companies in one place
    Inspect your collection of companies in a convenient table. View their recent major events in a dedicated place. Filter by filings, earnings, transcripts, and everything you need.
  • Track your research
    Check the boxes as you learn more about the company. Ten predefined questions to guide you.

Y-Combinator features and specs

  • Funding
    Y Combinator provides seed funding, typically $500,000, to help startups get off the ground.
  • Mentorship
    Access to experienced mentors and advisors who offer guidance on product development, business strategy, and growth.
  • Network
    Entrepreneurs get access to a vast network of successful alumni, investors, and industry connections.
  • Reputation
    Being backed by Y Combinator adds significant credibility and can attract further investments and partnerships.
  • Resources
    Access to various resources, including office space, legal advice, and operational support.
  • Demo Day
    An opportunity to pitch in front of influential investors, which can lead to additional funding and media attention.

Possible disadvantages of Y-Combinator

  • Equity Dilution
    Startups must give up a percentage of their equity (typically 7%) in exchange for the seed funding and support.
  • Intensive Program
    The 3-month program is extremely demanding and can be stressful for founders, requiring intense focus and long hours.
  • Not Guaranteed Success
    Despite the support, many startups fail to achieve long-term success after the program.
  • Highly Competitive
    The selection process is extremely competitive, with thousands of startups applying and only a small percentage being accepted.
  • Geographic Relocation
    Founders are usually required to relocate to the Bay Area for the duration of the program, which may be inconvenient or costly.

Analysis of Y-Combinator

Overall verdict

  • Y Combinator is generally considered good for early-stage startups looking for guidance, funding, and networking opportunities. Its rigorous selection process and the intense nature of its program may not be suitable for everyone, but it can be highly beneficial for those looking to scale rapidly.

Why this product is good

  • Y Combinator is widely regarded as a prestigious and influential startup accelerator, providing startups with mentorship, funding, and access to a valuable network of entrepreneurs and investors. It has a strong track record of nurturing successful companies like Airbnb, Dropbox, and Reddit, which enhances its reputation and credibility.

Recommended for

    Y Combinator is recommended for startups that have a solid product idea and are seeking not just funding, but also expert guidance and a platform to connect with influential people in the tech industry. It is particularly beneficial for first-time founders who can greatly benefit from the mentorship and structure provided by the program.

Smartfin videos

Smartfin: Surfing for Science

More videos:

  • Review - Surfers Fighting Climate Change - Smartfin
  • Review - Surfing for Citizen Science: Smartfin Teaser

Y-Combinator videos

No Y-Combinator videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

Add video

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Smartfin and Y-Combinator)
Finance
100 100%
0% 0
Startups
0 0%
100% 100
Investing
86 86%
14% 14
Startup Community
0 0%
100% 100

Questions and Answers

As answered by people managing Smartfin and Y-Combinator.

What's the story behind your product?

Smartfin's answer

It was a cold winter morning, marking six months since I had started at my new company. As usual, I took the subway, bracing myself for the day’s agenda: quarterly planning. Every three months, the engineering team gathers at a rented office space to strategize and map out the next quarter’s work. After a 40-minute commute, I arrived at the venue and felt a familiar wave of disdain. How do people do this every day? At least the warmth of my morning coffee offered a brief reprieve from the chill, both outside and within.

Being one of the first to arrive, I had a moment of quiet before the room began to fill with people. Gradually, the buzz of conversation grew louder as colleagues trickled in, all geared up to chart out how we could drive our bosses’ profits higher over the next few months. But was this it? Was this my future—endlessly commuting to work, just to make someone else richer? These questions had been nagging at me for a while. Deep down, I already had an idea, one that could help me break free from this routine. It was a solid concept, complete with a fallback plan. Now, all I needed was the right person to share the vision and take the leap with me.

Fortunately, the ideal collaborator was right next to me—my talented coworker Ilias. He had joined the company just two months before me, and together with our team lead, we formed the core of the data science team. Moments before the quarterly planning session began, I decided to share my idea with him: Let’s build a web application to help people find investments

In the worst-case scenario, we’ll gain valuable technical knowledge and significantly enhance our coding skills. Future employers would appreciate our expanded skill set and versatility. Plus, we’d have a powerful tool at our disposal to navigate the stock market and identify valuable companies to invest in ourselves. In the best-case scenario, the application becomes a success, generating income, enabling us to establish our own company, and freeing us from our current jobs.

We committed ourselves to four hours of work every day, weekends included, to build our app. It became an obsession—we eagerly anticipated those hours each day. We pushed ourselves to learn, to code, and to step out of our comfort zones countless times. But the most fulfilling part of the journey was knowing we were creating something to share with the world. After 4,000 hours of dedication, just the two of us brought Smartfin to life. And now, the moment has come to share it with everyone.

How would you describe your primary audience?

Smartfin's answer

The primary audience consists of everyday investors who want to make smarter investment decisions without spending hours on research.

They are:

  • Beginner to intermediate investors who lack deep financial knowledge but want to grow their wealth.
  • Busy professionals who don’t have time for complex stock analysis but still want to invest wisely.
  • Tech-savvy individuals who appreciate AI-driven insights, automation, and intuitive tools.
  • Retail investors looking for real-time alerts, stock updates, and valuation insights to stay ahead.

Essentially, Smartfin is built for anyone who wants to invest smarter, faster, and with confidence—without needing a finance PhD.

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Y-Combinator seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 18 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Smartfin mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Smartfin yet. Tracking of Smartfin recommendations started around Mar 2025.

Y-Combinator mentions (18)

  • FOSDEM 2025: The state of Rust trying to catch up with Ada [video]
    Exactly T is that's probably "really" a machine address in a CPU register, and so None is the same CPU register with an all-zeroes bit representation. My favourite non-standard library use of this feature is CompactString. CompactString is the SSO (Small String Optimisation) made famous in C++ but applied to Rust's strings. Rust's native String type is as simple as possible, thus no SSO, it's actually... - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • How to Make Money From Coding: A Beginner-Friendly Practical Guide
    Y Combinator: Provides funding and mentorship for early-stage startups. - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago
  • Ask HN: It Was Better with Www
    We all act like writing www. Is lame and for dads/grandparents, but the truth is: 1. You never know when you need to write https:// 2. It looks a lot uglier 3. Literally means "hypertext transfer protocol (secure)" (I had to look it up, and I am a hacker news user.) 4. Just happened to me: in a youtube description you cant just put ycombinator.com, you have to write https://ycombinator.com. This is not a problem... - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • demo of an AI driven RPG
    I found the link originally at ycombinator.com and they have some discussion around it. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Did Twitter die, Elon?
    I said this on ycombinator.com, if Elon spent more time on his business rather than arguing online about covid (which is what he was doing at the time of the outage btw), I feel like less twitter outages would happen and perhaps the Twitter Status would be properly updated. Of course, he would rather spend his time conversing online like a 14 year old on MW2 instead of actually doing his job. Source: over 2 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Smartfin and Y-Combinator, you can also consider the following products

FinChat - Your AI powered stock investing analyst

Techstars - Startup Accelerator Programs & Funding

Alpha Spread - Powerful stock valuation platform. Automatic stock valuation under various scenarios. Intrinsic & Relative valuation. Wall Street analysts estimates.

Wellfound - Where the startup world goes to find what’s next.

Stock Unlock - Stock Unlock is a stock analysis platform for anyone who wants to learn more about investing.

Pioneer.app - We fund projects and startups built by ambitious outsiders around the world