You asked about Advertising
49 people built something like it. 9 are gone.
That is 24% of the ones whose fate we could settle, against 23% across the whole register. 12 were acquired.
| Launched | What it was | Today |
|---|---|---|
| 2022-04-12 | paved.com | still up |
| 2014-06-01 | Rebuilding data in advertising to protect privacy · permutive.com | still up |
| 2022-02-08 | mishazhuro.com | still up |
| 2012-06-01 | YCVirool Virool provides native video advertising experience for the biggest… · virool.com | acquired |
| 2020-01-01 | YCTaiv AI-powered tech that makes business TV smarter, engaging, and… · taiv.tv | still up |
| 2015-01-01 | Software for collaborating with content creators and influencers · popularpays.com | acquired |
| 2025-09-01 | YCUplane Replace marketing agencies with AI · uplane.com | still up |
| 2023-01-01 | YCVector Advertising for the new internet · vector.co | still up |
| 2021-06-01 | YCPlai Create, launch, and optimize Facebook ads and ads on 10+ platforms · plai.io | still up |
| 2022-01-01 | Turn intuition into insights, in minutes · reforgedlabs.com | still up |
| 2015-01-01 | Scale new user acquisition with YouTube Creators · makrwatch.com | still up |
| 2012-06-01 | YCOmniVirt OmniVirt is the leading VR Advertising platform for brands and… · omnivirt.com | acquired |
| 2011-01-01 | YCEarbits Google AdWords for music. Allowing bands and labels to bid for… · earbits.com | acquired |
| 2022-01-01 | YCKular AI Lead Generator · kular.ai | still up |
| 2023-01-01 | Performance-Optimized Influencer Marketing at Scale · 1stcollab.com | still up |
| 2011-06-01 | Self-service display advertising for SaaS and online retail. · perfectaudience.com | acquired |
| 2014-01-01 | Animated mobile ads. · motionlead.com | acquired |
| 2014-01-01 | Advertising platform tools for marketplace sellers. · boostable.com | acquired |
| 2012-06-01 | We're a mobile on-device profiling and ad-serving platform initially… · mthsense.com | still up |
| 2009-01-01 | YCHeyzap Heyzap (acquired by Fyber for $45m in 2016) is one of the largest… · heyzap.com | acquired |
| 2013-06-01 | YCURX Mobile ads that users like. Acquired by Pinterest in May 2016. · urx.com | acquired |
| 2022-06-01 | Uncover high-fit leads already silently engaging with your brand · customeros.ai | gone |
| 2023-01-01 | A new kind of creative company. · rubbrband.com | still up |
| 2022-01-01 | YCVimmerse Bring your photos to life with Vimmerse · vimmerse.net | still up |
| 2019-06-01 | YCJupiter AppLovin for the food & CPG · jupiter.co | still up |
| 2020-01-01 | YCPaneau Tablets inside Uber/Lyfts to advertise directly to riders · paneau.io | gone |
| 2025-06-01 | YCKnowlify Done-for-you AI video ads and Meta campaign management · knowlify.com | still up |
| 2023-06-01 | Building the AI-powered marketing ops platform that turns website… · withsurface.com | still up |
| 2025-09-01 | YCLapis AI that creates and runs ads, end-end · trylapis.com | still up |
| 2023-01-01 | Self-Improving Marketing Harness · gooseworks.ai | still up |
| 2022-01-01 | YCSprites The proactive agent that achieves growth goals for businesses, fully… · sprites.ai | still up |
| 2018-06-01 | Now part of thentwrk.com · demeanor.co | acquired |
| 2018-06-01 | YCGrabb-It Grabb-It is a location based Dynamic Digital - OOH advertising… · grabb-it.io | gone |
| 2012-06-01 | Mobile advertising · lean.com | gone |
| 2025-09-01 | YCBluma Canva for short-form video ads · getbluma.com | still up |
| 2026-01-01 | YCVeriad AI operating system for advertising · veriad.com | still up |
| 2023-06-01 | YCKite Screen recorder for stunning product demo videos · kite.video | still up |
| 2016-06-01 | YCCoinTent Recover revenue lost to ad blockers · cointent.com | gone |
| 2022-01-01 | Monetization platform for AI characters and dramas · moots.ai | still up |
| 2021-06-01 | Bringing back blimps · buoyant.aero | still up |
| 2011-06-01 | YCVapor In-video advertising. · askolo.com | gone |
| 2024-09-01 | YCStewdio All-in-one AI creative platform · stewdio.ai | still up |
| 2015-01-01 | On a mission to programmatically automate, optimize, and unify your… · kuhcoon.com | gone |
| 2017-06-01 | First agentic AI-powered community for 1 billion people with criminal… · commissary.club | gone |
| 2011-06-01 | Touch-friendly marketing, acquired by Dropbox · tapengage.com | acquired |
| 2010-06-01 | YCAdGrok Easy SEM software. Acquired by Twitter in 2011. · adgrok.com | acquired |
| 2025-09-01 | AI agents on real phones, growing brands across every platform. · tellif.ai | still up |
| 2024-01-01 | YCPolished Generate ads. Iterate till perfect. · polished.ad | still up |
| 2012-06-01 | Attribution metatags for online content. · credictive.com | gone |
How this compares
Y Combinator reports its own outcomes, including acquisitions. The other two are judged by asking the domain, so they are not measured the same way and are never averaged together.
The register re-probes every domain it holds. Some that answered last month stop answering. We send that list — what went quiet, and what it was — once a month. Nothing else.
How this was made. Show HN entries are every post from 2021 to 2023 with at least five points that linked to its own domain; code hosts and free hosting are excluded, because a repository outlives the effort behind it. Product Hunt entries needed 100 votes — a far higher bar, so they are the promoted top slice rather than a like-for-like sample. Both are judged by asking the domain whether it still answers: gone means it no longer resolves, refuses the connection, serves a parking page, or says plainly that it shut down. An HTTP error is not counted as gone — a server answering 404 is one somebody still pays for, and an audit of 25 gone-calls found two such sites alive with only a moved homepage. Y Combinator entries use the status YC publishes itself, which is why only those can say acquired. Squatted domains — a lapsed name now serving somebody else's site — are not detected, so these figures run slightly low.