Mathilde Collin Joins YC as Visiting Partner

Mathilde Collin, co-founder of customer service platform Front, is joining Y Combinator as a Visiting Partner. It's a full-circle moment for Collin, who went through YC herself as part of the Summer 2014 batch.

Visiting Partners are former founders who are taking some time out before their next thing to help advise startups during the batch. They work closely with YC General Partners, sharing hard-won insights from building and scaling their own companies. Some Visiting Partners eventually transition into full-time partner roles at YC.

Collin has plenty of those insights to share. She launched Front in June 2014 after founding it in October 2013, and over the following decade built it into a customer communications platform used in the day-to-day operations of over 8,500 companies. Front approached $100 million in annual revenue and reached a $1.7 billion valuation after its 2022 Series D.

In March 2024, Collin stepped into the role of Executive Chair and appointed Dan O'Connell as CEO to lead the company's next phase. Since then, she has been active as an angel investor. Collin has a portfolio of 46 companies, including notable bets on Mercury and Loom.

Collin's experience as a first-time, non-American founder navigating YC and the broader Silicon Valley ecosystem gives her a distinctive perspective for advising the current batch. After being accepted into YC, she moved her team to the Bay Area and found that the mindset suited them better, allowing them to move faster. She eventually relocated Front's entire team from France to San Francisco.