Silicon Valley technology startup accelerator Y Combinator has been used to launch more than 4,000 companies since the program was established in 2005.
Some names that you may recognize include Airbnb, Quora, Reddit, and Stripe.
Among the graduates have also been a slew of BC-based companies, including Truss, Matidor, and Metritport.
IcePanel is the latest Vancouver-born startup to run through the Y Combinator gauntlet.
Cofounded in 2021 by Victor Leach and Jacob Shadbolt, IcePanel is a “collaborative diagramming tool that helps software engineering and product teams align on technical decisions,” according to the startup’s YC profile. “Teams use IcePanel to create a map of their software systems, giving them full context about how it works.”
The startup offers “structured modelling with a lightweight consistent language” that can be visually communicated “in a way your whole team understands.”
“Are you responsible for designing cloud systems?” asks Shadbolt. If so, “IcePanel is the tool for you.”
Leach and Shadbolt believe software systems are becoming increasingly complex, and consequently technical teams “often find it challenging to tell the right story and gain alignment.”
“Technical diagrams are inconsistent, lack context, and drift from reality,” the startup believes, adding that this can lead to bad communication across teams, which is “time-consuming and expensive.”
To battle these shortcomings, IcePanel leverages in-house technology to provide “a single source of truth with reusable objects and relationships, keeping your diagrams in sync and up-to-date with changes.”
This allows teams to better communicate which allows for the development of a “consistent, shared knowledge base,” fostering alignment across departments.
Currently, IcePanel offers a basic free version as well as a premium subscription-based version to unlock the full breadth of modelling and related features.
While young, the company claims over 100 paying customers, including a diverse array of notable brands, such as IBM, BMW, and Cisco.
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