Founded in 2004 by Jeremy Stoppelman and Russel Simmons, the idea of Yelp was inspired by the vision of empowering individuals to make informed decisions about local businesses through the power of community-sourced reviews.

Since then, it's become one of the most used websites for finding reviews on restaurants, spas, gyms, etc. In fact, Google offered to buy Yelp for $550 million in 2005, but Stoppelman refused. This article has some cool facts and info on Yelp.

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The Yelp Mafia

Yelp's alumni network has built some amazing companies. In this article we cover the top 31 companies that have raised a total of $8 billion according to Crunchbase data.

These companies are majorly focussed on SaaS, health and AI.

PS: Are you a Yelp employee/alum interested in getting your community together to invest in the community (and earn carry/other benefits along the way)? Or are you a member of another community that you think would make for an amazing startup investment community? 😉

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Learn more about us and sign up for the waitlist here.

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Most money raised: Affirm

Affirm is a buy now, pay later service that allows merchants to provide flexible payment plans for their customers.

Affirm was founded in 2012 by Nathan Gettings (co-founder of Palantir), Max Levchin (co-founder of PayPal), Jeff Kaditz, and Alex Rampell.

As of 2023, Affirm has a market cap of $5.39 billion and over 2,071 employees. In April–June 2023, Affirm processed 2.04% of the total US e-commerce payment value, which was $5.5 billion.

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Startup to watch out for: Pylon

Pylon is a real-time customer operations platform helping B2B companies scale customer success and support over Slack, Teams, and Discord.

Pylon's platform is built to help businesses scale a new way of operating. Businesses have started shifting away from email to chat platforms like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Discord.

Pylon has raised a total of $3.3M. Their latest funding was raised on Jul 11, 2023 from a Seed round by General Catalyst.

Founded by Advith Chelikani, Marty Kausas, and Robert Eng, Pylon is based out of  San Francisco, California.

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A list of all the amazing companies covered:

• Affirm
• Infinity Ventures
• Evisort
• Health IQ
• Phantom
• Magic
• Sardine
• Cherry Street Energy
• Superblocks
• Glow
• Baseten
• Supermove
• GoodTime.io
• Honey Homes
• Cased
• Whimstay
• Marqii
• SigOpt
• Qortex
• Dock
• Suiteness
• Satsuma
• Replo
• Forge
• SellScale
• Pylon
• Sympto Health
• Gesture US, Inc.
• Fiix
• Neon
• Wide Open Spaces

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Affirm

Founder: Max Levchin
Yelp Role: Chairman of the Board of Directors
Capital Raised: $1.5B
Investors: GGV Capital
Stage: Public

Affirm is a financial technology services company that offers installment loans to consumers at the point of sale.

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Evisort

Founder: Jerry Ting
Yelp Role: Account Executive
Capital Raised: $155.6M
Investors: Amity Ventures
Stage: Series C

Evisort is the next generation of AI-powered contract intelligence.

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Health IQ

Founder: Betsy (Filson) Field
Yelp Role: Graphic Designer
Capital Raised: $136.5M
Investors: CRV
Stage: Series D

Their mission: to increase health literacy around the world.

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Phantom

Founder: Francesco Agosti
Yelp Role: Software Engineer
Capital Raised: $118M
Investors: a16z
Stage: Series B

The friendly crypto wallet built for DeFi & NFTs.

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Magic

Founder: Arthur Jen
Yelp Role: Software Engineering
Capital Raised: $83M
Investors: Lightspeed Venture Partners
Stage: Series B

Magic is a developer of SDK that integrates with applications to enable password-less Web3 onboarding and authentication.

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Sardine

Founder: Soups Ranjan
Yelp Role: Software Engineer - Data Mining
Capital Raised: $75.6M
Investors: FJ Labs
Stage: Series B

Sardine is fraud prevention and compliance software company for the digital economy.

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Cherry Street Energy

Founder: Amanda Chanin
Yelp Role: Account Executive
Capital Raised: $42.7M
Investors: EBSCO Industries
Stage: Corporate Round

Cherry Street Energy operates as a renewable energy company that helps transform the energy marketplace.

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Superblocks

Founder: Brad Menezes
Yelp Role: Lead Product Manager, Reservations & Delivery
Capital Raised: $37M
Investors: Aaron Levie
Stage: Series A

Superblocks is a programmable internal tooling platform for developers.

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Glow

Founder: Max Levchin
Yelp Role: Chairman of the Board of Directors
Capital Raised: $23M
Investors: Founders Fund
Stage: Series B

Glow is a fertility app that crunches and analyzes vast quantities of data to help users take control of their reproductive health.

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Baseten

Founder: Amir Haghighat
Yelp Role: Software Engineer
Capital Raised: $20M
Investors: Greylock
Stage: Series A

Baseten is a serverless backend that offers a fast way to build machine-learning-powered applications.

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Supermove

Founder: Mark Miyashita
Yelp Role: Software Engineer Intern/Part-Time
Capital Raised: $18M
Investors: Founders Fund
Stage: Series A

Supermove is a web-based software designed to help moving and storage companies.

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GoodTime.io

Founder: Jasper Sone
Yelp Role: Product Manager
Capital Raised: $16.7M
Investors: Array Ventures
Stage: Series A

The Meeting Optimization Engine that makes business meetings smarter

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Honey Homes

Founder: Vishwas Prabhakara
Yelp Role: Vice President and General Manager, Yelp Reservations and Nowait
Capital Raised: $12.1M
Investors: Khosla Ventures
Stage: Series A

Honey Homes is a home maintenance firm that offers house maintenance and related services.

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Cased

Founder: Ben Bleikamp, Bryan Byrne
Yelp Role: Product Manager, Director of Business & Revenue Products
Capital Raised: $10.5M
Investors: Founders Fund
Stage: Series A

Cased provides a modern terminal for teams and a platform for production work.

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Whimstay

Founder: Alex Alioto
Yelp Role: Senior National Franchise Manager
Capital Raised: $10M
Investors: Talent Resources Ventures.
Stage: Seed

Whimstay is the leading vacation rental marketplace for travelers looking to book last-minute stays at a great value.

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Marqii

Founder: Avi Goren
Yelp Role: Senior Account Executive
Capital Raised: $9.7M
Investors: CEAS Investments
Stage: Series A

Marqii is a digital operations platform that empowers hospitality businesses to take control of their online information, menus and reviews.

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SigOpt

Founder: Scott Clark
Yelp Role: Software Engineer and Team Lead
Capital Raised: $8.7M
Investors: Y Combinator
Stage: Acquired by Intel

SigOpt’s API tunes the model’s parameters through state-of-the-art Bayesian optimization.

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Qortex

Founder: James Altschuler
Yelp Role: Senior Account Executive
Capital Raised: $8.5M
Investors: GFT Ventures
Stage: Series A

Qortex is the pioneer of on-stream, scalable in-video experiences for the web and CTV, powered by AI.

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Dock

Founder: Alex Kracov
Yelp Role: Junior Account Executive
Capital Raised: $6.5M
Investors: Craft Ventures
Stage: Seed

Dock is a tool to help you create collaborative workspaces for prospects, customers, investors, and partners.

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Suiteness

Founder: Kyle Killion
Yelp Role: Product Manager
Capital Raised: $6M
Investors: Y Combinator
Stage: Series A

Suiteness is a free-to-join hotel booking website connecting hotel rooms and suites.

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Satsuma

Founder: Jonathan Kau
Yelp Role: Software Engineer
Capital Raised: $5M
Investors: South Park Commons
Stage: Seed

Satsuma is a reliable blockchain indexing service for web3 engineering teams.

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Replo

Founder: Noah Gilmore, Yuxin Zhu
Yelp Role: Software Engineers
Capital Raised: $4.2M
Investors: Y Combinator
Stage: Seed

Replo is a visual CMS that enables building e commerce development.

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Forge

Founder: Keaton W.
Yelp Role: National Sales - Elite Account Director
Capital Raised: $4M
Investors: Brainstorm Ventures
Stage: Seed

Forge is a platform that empowers hourly workforces to work on-demand while giving their employers the tools needed to run their businesses. Acquired by WorkJam.

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SellScale

Founder: Aakash Adesara
Yelp Role: Engineer (Android)
Capital Raised: $3.4M
Investors: Pear Ventures
Stage: Seed

SellScale is a sales and marketing software that uses artificial intelligence to generate better marketing emails.

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Pylon

Founder: Marty Kausas
Yelp Role: Software Engineering Intern
Capital Raised: $3.3M
Investors: Y Combinator
Stage: Seed

Pylon is a real-time customer operations platform helping B2B companies scale customer success and support over Slack, Teams, and Discord.

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Sympto Health

Founder: Prithvi Narasimhan
Yelp Role: Software Engineer (Intern)
Capital Raised: $2.1M
Investors: Pear Ventures
Stage: Seed

Sympto Health is an early stage software company re-imagining the relationship between nurses and their patients.

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Gesture US, Inc.

Founder: Ben Labra
Yelp Role: Senior Account Executive
Capital Raised: $2M
Investors: New Age Capital
Stage: Seed

Gesture is a modernized gifting platform, built to easily send custom gifts, faster than sending a Venmo.

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Fiix

Founder: Zain Manji
Yelp Role: Software Engineer
Capital Raised: $1.9M
Investors: Y Combinator
Stage: Seed

Fiix sends licensed, expert mechanics to your home or office to repair your car within the same day.

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Neon

Founder: Joseph Lai
Yelp Role: Senior Product Manager - Mobile
Capital Raised: $1.2M
Investors: Y Combinator
Stage: Pre-Seed

Neon delivers ready-to-eat meals from restaurants to homes.

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Wide Open Spaces

Founder: Denis O'Dwyer
Yelp Role: Vice President of Local Sales
Capital Raised: $1.1M
Investors: Hedgewood
Stage: Seed

Wide Open Spaces is an online platform that provides hunting and fishing enthusiasts with content, community, and commerce.

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