Fantasy YCSpring 2026 · LiveThree layers.
One final number.
Brackets score after Demo Day. Here's how a single pick becomes points.
The tier you placed the company in. After Demo Day, the company lands in one of these five tiers, and your score depends on how close you were.
- You called it+10UnicornExact tier
- Adjacent tier, partial credit+3Rocket ShipOff by one
- No credit, no penalty0WorkhorseOff by two
- No credit, no penalty0SleeperOff by three
- No credit, no penalty0CookedOff by four
Close isn't wrong. Three or more tiers off is a small penalty, enough that a thoughtful bracket clearly beats random guessing.
Base points reward how close you got.
Tiers are ordered: Unicorn → Rocket Ship → Workhorse → Sleeper → Cooked. Your pick's base score is set by the distance between where you put a company and where it actually landed.
Close isn't wrong. There are no negative points anywhere — missing big floors at zero, not a penalty. Cooked is the opt-out tier; placing a company there always scores 0, even if it really was a nobody. Points only come from the four structured tiers.
+25 for calling a Unicorn.
Unicorn is the smallest tier — exactly 5 slots regardless of batch size — and the highest-information call. Getting it right means picking a future top-decile company from a 150+ company pool.
2× when the crowd faded it.
If fewer than 20% of submitted brackets put a company in Unicorn or Rocket Ship, but you did, and the pick lands, everything doubles. Three conditions, all must hold:
- 01You placed the company in Unicorn or Rocket Ship.
- 02A consensus snapshot exists for this company at scoring time.
- 03The combined Unicorn-or-Rocket-Ship share is < 20% (strict).
The multiplier applies to base + Breakout-bonus. A contrarian Unicorn call that hits and was below the 20% threshold scores (10 + 25) × 2 = 70— the maximum single-pick score. A contrarian pick that misses just scores its base (still floored at 0).
The tier a company lands in comes from its outcome.
After Demo Day, every company gets a final valuation that decides its actual tier. Acquisitions, IPOs, and shutdowns all flow through the same number, with one exception.
- ActiveLatest post-money valuationSorted normallySorted normally
- AcquiredAcquisition price (cash + stock at close)Sorted normally. An exit is what the buyer paid.Sorted normally. An exit is what the buyer paid.
- IPOPublic market cap at the scoring-run timestampSorted normally. The market sets the number.Sorted normally. The market sets the number.
- ShutdownOverrides any prior valuationForced into the bottom tierForced into the bottom tier
- Unknown / no newsNo valuation recordedSorts to the end → bottom tier tailSorts to the end → bottom tier tail
- Exits aren't bonuses. A $200M acquisition and a $200M Series C are the same number. No multiplier delta.
- Shutdowns are a forced bottom-tier. A dead company overrides any prior valuation. Putting one in Unicorn is a distance-4 miss.
- Acquihires are operator judgment. When a sale price is clearly stealth-failure (well below last post-money), the operator may flag it as a shutdown instead.
- IPOs use the market cap at scoring time. Not IPO day. Reduces sensitivity to lockup mechanics and first-day pops.
Today, the operator folds exit prices into the company's valuation manually before scoring runs. The status-aware engine ships in a follow-up phase. This page documents the policy that engine will enforce.
Sample Co: the math.
AI / Enterprise
- Placed inUnicorn
- Actual tierUnicorn· exact hit
- Exact tier+10+10 for nailing the tier
- Breakout bonus+25+25 for calling a Unicorn
- Sleeper2×2× because the crowd faded this one
- Final+70points
The floor and the ceiling.
(10 + 25) × 2. A Breakout call that hit, on a contrarian sleeper pick.
No negative points anywhere. Missing a tier or putting someone in Cooked just floors at zero.
The full table.
| Outcome | Points | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Exact tier | +10 | You called the tier exactly |
| Off by 1 tier | +3 | Adjacent tier, partial credit |
| Off by 2 tiers | 0 | No credit, no penalty |
| Off by 3+ tiers | 0 | No credit, no penalty |
| Cooked pick (any actual tier) | 0 | Wildcard is the opt-out tier — no points from there ever |
| Unicorn bonus | +25 | Correctly called a Unicorn |
| Sleeper multiplier | 2× | <20% consensus pick that lands Unicorn/Rocket Ship |
| Acquisition | sale price | Used as the valuation for tier sorting |
| IPO | market cap | Public market cap at scoring run |
| Shutdown | forced | Lands in the bottom tier regardless |