Now that we have made it through the first couple weeks of YC and are heads-down building product, we want to quickly take a moment and share some exciting news about the beginning of this process. YC always starts off with a founder retreat. For us that happened last weekend - we got to talk to our amazing peers, have great food, and engage in some unorthodox activities (Vignesh found himself beatboxing and Ankit rapping [read: talking fast with no rhythm] during a grape stomping session; Connor somehow ended the weekend with a concussion). We were placed in Group 1, home to most of the hard tech startups, with Group Partners Gustaf Alstromer, Diana Hu, Jared Friedman, and John Xu. There are four groups - each group has about 60 startups.

During the Group 1 founder presentation dinner in which every G1 founding team presented their team, idea, and vision we are very happy to announce Anthrogen (Arctic Capture) was designated the Most Promising Startup/Most Likely to Succeed!

We were voted on by other founders, Group Partners, and YC staff. Does this mean much? Probably not. It's exciting and validating as a founder to have this happen but we are still super early in the process. Most startups will be unrecognizable during demo day compared to last weekend. This is a good thing! It's why we joined YC in the first place. The intensity of the work and the warmth of the community is unlike any other environment and enables all of us to grow in some unexpected ways. We do, of course, intend to continue making something people want (and need). We are pumped, nervous (in all the best ways), and hopeful for the coming weeks and posting updates on our progress. In the meantime, some pictures from retreat and the last few days:

Fig 1. Presenting our company to the YC communal dinner. We ended up doing this twice - once general, once in the finalist round. Getting our reps in :)

Fig 2. Group Picture!

Fig 3. Unconference led by Jared - loved a lot of the talks given by other founders and Group Partners alike.

Fig 4. Meeting other founders over Mediterranean food!

Fig 5. Chatting, snacking after an OpenAI, Stripe event with Greg Brockman and Patrick Collison. Vignesh and I are right in the middle next to the table (hard to spot, I know).

Fig 6. Food truck festival during our last evening.