A new $34 million venture fund has now reportedly now been launched with a singular focus: backing startups that emerge from Y Combinator’s accelerator program.
The fund, called Orange Collective, was co-founded by Julian Shapiro, a growth marketing expert and longtime participant in the YC ecosystem.
What sets the fund apart is its limited scope — it invests exclusively in Y Combinator companies.
Shapiro, along with former Segment CTO Calvin French-Owen and ex-Snap engineer Anna London, aims to offer YC founders not just capital, but a network of advisors and operators with deep experience in scaling startups.
The fund’s limited partners include several high-profile names in Silicon Valley, including Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan, who personally invested in the fund.
Although Orange Collective operates independently of Y Combinator, Tan’s backing signals a close philosophical alignment.
According to Shapiro, the idea is to create a founder-friendly fund that offers more than just a check.
The firm plans to help with everything from hiring engineers to optimizing product-market fit — essentially functioning as a “scaling collective” of YC alumni who’ve built and sold major tech companies.
In line with its focused approach, Orange Collective will only write checks to companies that have already been through Y Combinator’s accelerator.
The team plans to be highly selective, investing in just 20 startups per year.
The fund is part of a growing trend in Silicon Valley: micro-funds run by operators and founders who are deeply embedded in specific startup ecosystems.
While Y Combinator itself operates an enormous seed fund and invests in hundreds of startups per batch, Orange Collective hopes to fill a niche by providing more personalized, hands-on support to a much smaller cohort.
The $34 million fund will primarily write early-stage checks — mostly at the seed and Series A levels. Founders from recent YC batches have already begun receiving outreach from the team, which hopes to begin deploying capital this summer.
Though new, the fund is betting that its tight focus, insider relationships, and hands-on operating experience will help it win deals in an increasingly competitive venture landscape — particularly one in which Y Combinator startups often receive multiple offers within days of demo day.
For Shapiro and his team, the goal is to double down on the YC ecosystem — one of Silicon Valley’s most enduring startup pipelines — and help its graduates go further.
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