You asked about Advertising
46 people built something like it. 9 are gone.
That is 26% of the ones whose fate we could settle, against 23% across the whole register. 12 were acquired.
| Launched | What it was | Today |
|---|---|---|
| 2014-06-01 | Rebuilding data in advertising to protect privacy · permutive.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 |
| 2021-06-01 | YCPlai Create, launch, and optimize Facebook ads and ads on 10+ platforms · plai.io | still up |
| 2023-01-01 | YCVector Advertising for the new internet · vector.co | 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 |
| 2014-01-01 | Animated mobile ads. · motionlead.com | acquired |
| 2012-06-01 | We're a mobile on-device profiling and ad-serving platform initially… · mthsense.com | still up |
| 2013-06-01 | YCURX Mobile ads that users like. Acquired by Pinterest in May 2016. · urx.com | acquired |
| 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 |
| 2009-01-01 | YCHeyzap Heyzap (acquired by Fyber for $45m in 2016) is one of the largest… · heyzap.com | acquired |
| 2014-01-01 | Advertising platform tools for marketplace sellers. · boostable.com | acquired |
| 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 |
| 2022-06-01 | Uncover high-fit leads already silently engaging with your brand · customeros.ai | gone |
| 2019-06-01 | YCJupiter AppLovin for the food community · jupiter.co | still up |
| 2020-01-01 | YCPaneau Tablets inside Uber/Lyfts to advertise directly to riders · paneau.io | gone |
| 2023-06-01 | Building the AI-powered marketing ops platform that turns website… · withsurface.com | still up |
| 2025-09-01 | YCAbsurd The Creative OS for AI video · absurd.com | still up |
| 2025-09-01 | YCLapis AI that creates and runs ads, end-end · trylapis.com | still up |
| 2023-01-01 | Self-Improving Ad Creative Engines · gooseworks.ai | still up |
| 2022-01-01 | YCSprites The AI performance marketing agent for entrepreneurs and growth teams · 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 |
| 2016-06-01 | YCCoinTent Recover revenue lost to ad blockers · cointent.com | gone |
| 2010-06-01 | YCAdGrok Easy SEM software. Acquired by Twitter in 2011. · adgrok.com | acquired |
| 2011-06-01 | YCVapor In-video advertising. · askolo.com | gone |
| 2015-01-01 | On a mission to programmatically automate, optimize, and unify your… · kuhcoon.com | gone |
| 2023-06-01 | YCKite Screen recorder for stunning product demo videos · kite.video | still up |
| 2021-06-01 | Bringing back blimps · buoyant.aero | still up |
| 2024-09-01 | YCStewdio All-in-one AI creative platform · stewdio.ai | still up |
| 2026-01-01 | YCVeriad Enterprise marketing agents · veriad.com | still up |
| 2025-09-01 | AI agents on real phones, growing brands across every platform. · tellif.ai | still up |
| 2011-06-01 | Touch-friendly marketing, acquired by Dropbox · tapengage.com | acquired |
| 2025-09-01 | YCBluma Canva for short-form video ads · getbluma.com | still up |
| 2017-06-01 | First agentic AI-powered community for 1 billion people with criminal… · commissary.club | gone |
| 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
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.