Dropbox was the first truly cross-platform, cloud-based storage service. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Dropbox almost single-handedly created the cloud-based storage market as we know it.

One company in particular, however, would exceed the expectations of Y Combinator’s demanding panel of judges, later becoming one of Silicon Valley’s earliest “unicorn” companies and the first Y Combinator company to go public. Cloud-based distributed database company, Cloudant, was another. Online commenting platform Disqus was among the companies that showcased their products that day. Most companies that presented on that fateful Thursday didn’t make it, but some did. Only four of the 19 companies participating in Demo Day 2007 had working betas. They were there for Demo Day, Y Combinator’s highly-anticipated biannual startup showcase. On Thursday, August 9th, 2007, the founders of 19 startups gathered at the now-defunct office of the Y Combinator (YC) accelerator in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Dropbox co founder