<div class="portada"><div class="meta">Menteia · Sommelier IA · October 2026 · Confidential</div>

# Y Combinator application (raw draft)

**Sommelier IA** — AI voice sommelier and WhatsApp concierge that recommends pairings, quotes, books and follows up with every customer of restaurants, chefs, wineries and wine shops.</div>


Answers ready to paste into the YC form (Winter 2027 closes on **Nov 2, 2026**, 8 pm Pacific time; confirm at ycombinator.com/apply). Only real data as of Oct 28, 2026; where there is no data we say so. At the end, the critique a partner would make.

Criteria used: ycinsight.com/apply (what partners look for in each question), ycinsight.com/yc-deal and ycinsight.com/yc-request-for-startups.

## Company

### Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Voice sommelier and WhatsApp concierge for restaurants (54 characters)

### What is your company going to make?

A voice sommelier on the restaurant's site recommends wine pairings for any dish, and a WhatsApp agent quotes events, takes bookings and remembers each guest's preferences.

## Progress

### How far along are you?

One showcase deployment: Chef Sergio Camacho (sergiocamacho.pro), live since mid-2026. No paying customers and no agent usage metrics.

### How long have each of you been working on this? How much of that has been full-time?

~4 months, part-time.

## Idea

### Why did you pick this idea to work on? Do you have domain expertise? How do you know people need what you're making?

High-end restaurants and private chefs lose bookings on unanswered WhatsApp. Validated with one chef who is also on our team.

### Who are your competitors? What do you understand about your business that they don't?

Reservation platforms (OpenTable), voice agents for restaurants (Slang.ai), generic WhatsApp bots, a human sommelier.

### How do or will you make money? How much could you make?

US$150–300/month per venue plus setup and a wine-sale commission. Not validated.

### Tell us something surprising or amusing that one of you has discovered.

Pending.

## Founders

### Founders

Three co-founders: Rafael Herrera (CEO/CFO), Vladimir Díaz (CTO, software engineer, 20 years, PhD in business competitiveness and innovation from IQS–Ramon Llull, advised Ford, CANTV, Google and Globant) and Francisco D'Angelo Ohep (lawyer, LLM in international business law, AI-law specialist from Universidad de Salamanca). Vladimir wrote the code.

## Numbers YC will work out

| Question | Honest answer |
| --- | --- |
| Default alive? | No. |
| Does it fit a 2026 RFS? | No fit. |
| Valuation we would ask for outside YC | US$800,000 pre-money |
| What YC offers | US$500k: US$125k for 7% (≈ US$1.79 M post) + US$375k on an uncapped SAFE with MFN |

## Blunt critique (what a partner would attack)
- A single customer who is also part of the team is not validation. Do not apply with this.
- It can serve as a use case for the agent platform, not as a company.

## What to do in the next 8 weeks
- Sell to 5 outside restaurants or pause.