Diana Hu Appointed Managing Partner at Y Combinator
Startup accelerator Y Combinator has promoted Diana Hu to Managing Partner. Hu previously founded a startup acquired by Niantic and returned to YC in 2021.
Y Combinator, the prominent startup accelerator, has appointed Diana Hu as its newest Managing Partner. Hu joined Y Combinator in 2022 as a Group Partner, following a stint as a Visiting Group Partner starting in 2021.
Before her roles at Y Combinator, Hu was a co-founder of Escher Reality, an augmented reality backend company that was acquired by Niantic in 2018. During her tenure at Y Combinator, she has worked with approximately 230 companies across 18 batches, providing over 2,100 office hours. The companies she has supported now hold a combined valuation of $7 billion.
Hu, originally from Chile, studied computer vision and machine learning at Carnegie Mellon University. Her technical background includes data science work at OnCue and machine learning research at Intel Labs prior to founding Escher Reality. At Niantic, she led the AR Platform team, deploying AR technology to over 100 million players of Pokémon GO.
Y Combinator highlighted Hu's unique combination of experience building a startup from inception and shipping technology at a massive scale. Her deep technical expertise in machine learning and AR is seen as crucial for founders, particularly those working on advanced technologies such as AI, robotics, and other hard tech sectors.