Garry Tan says top venture capitalists will be able to attend classes in person at Y Combinator’s next Demo Day

Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan wants the famed accelerator’s Demo Day presentations to return and happen in person later this 12 months.

During Tan’s opening keynote at YC’s summer cohort Demo Day on Wednesday, he said this 12 months’s Demo Day presentations will be “touch wood” the last to be held entirely online. Tan added that the accelerator’s first fall cohort Demo Day, on Dec. 4, will have an in-person element.

Demo Days are graduation-like events for startups to pitch their products to investors and others in the tech ecosystem. Tan said the variety of spots at the event will be limited and reserved for decision-makers who’ve invested at least $50,000 in YC firms in the past two years.

“Think of it this way: Now you all have four must-attend events a year in San Francisco where you can meet up with your friends and see the future at the same time,” Tan told venture capitalists who watched the net broadcast of the planned live event.

Returning to in-person Demo Days is a logical move. While each the accelerator program and Demo Days went online, virtual in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this system itself returned to an in-person event and has been for 2 years now. In the meantime, YC has played a key role in encouraging more startups to locate in the Bay Area in general and San Francisco in particular. In addition to the accelerator program, it hosts quite a few other in-person events for its alumni and startup community.

Y Combinator recently expanded the variety of startup cohorts it has annually from two to 4, adding a fall and spring batch. The first fall cohort begins Sept. 29. YC’s first spring program will launch in 2025.