Openbase
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
Some sections are still being researched2 / 4
Sections to complete：02 · 05
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Openbase was a San Francisco-based developer tools startup founded by Lior Grossman, billed as the 'Yelp for open source software packages'. Its platform helped developers choose among millions of open-source packages - 1.5 million JavaScript packages at launch, with Python, Go and others in beta - by offering categorization, comparison, user reviews, and insights like weekly downloads, commit activity and GitHub stars. It reached half a million developers in its first year, joined Y Combinator's Summer 2020 cohort, and raised a $3.65 million seed round led by Zeev Ventures with participation from YC and angels including the founders of Docker, Netlify, Yelp and Twitch.
02 / FAILURE REASONS
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03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Founded
Openbase was founded by Lior Grossman to solve his own problem of choosing the right open-source components; it went from zero to half a million users in the first year on word of mouth alone.
- YC and seed round
Openbase joined Y Combinator's Summer 2020 cohort and in January 2021 announced a $3.65 million seed round led by Zeev Ventures, with participation from YC and angels including Heroku's former CEO, Docker's co-founder, Netlify's founders, Yelp's CEO and Twitch's co-founder.
- Discontinued
Openbase was discontinued in 2023, per Y Combinator's company page; no public failure reasons were disclosed.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN / AFTERMATH
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.