<div class="portada"><div class="meta">Menteia · PlaneTech Air Express · October 2026 · Confidential</div>

# Y Combinator application (raw draft)

**PlaneTech Air Express** — Express sale of aircraft parts from Miami for operators and repair shops in Mexico: an AI agent searches the global market for the part, requests quotes from suppliers and delivers the proposal to the customer in hours.</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.

AI broker that sources aircraft parts in hours (46 characters)

### What is your company going to make?

PlaneTech Air Express is a Miami parts broker run by an AI agent. An operator in Mexico asks for a part on Telegram/WhatsApp (part number, photo of the data plate or voice note); the agent searches PartsBase, emails RFQs to every relevant supplier, reads their replies and PDFs, and builds the customer quote with our margin. A specialist approves before it goes out.

## Progress

### How far along are you?

Agent in production since August 2026. Active customer: ALE (Aerolíneas Ejecutivas, Toluca). Real searches return 177–185 offers per part number; one request emailed 8 suppliers in one pass. Closed orders and revenue: not documented yet.

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

~2 months.

## 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?

An aircraft on the ground costs thousands per day and Toluca operators wait days for quotes. We operate from Miami with a 10+ year industry specialist.

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

Local suppliers in Toluca, traditional Miami brokers, marketplaces (PartsBase, ILS), OEM distributors. Edge: speed — the first broker to quote usually wins.

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

15–50% gross margin per part (higher for AOG). Revenue = margin, not GMV.

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

Most of the work was reading supplier replies, not searching: PDFs with prices, conditions and bank details.

## 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? | Unknown until sales are documented. Trading can be default alive early if margin covers a small team. |
| Does it fit a 2026 RFS? | No direct fit. |
| Valuation we would ask for outside YC | US$1,800,000 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)
- It is the only business that can become profitable quickly: per-transaction margins with a real customer. But without documented sales there is no story.
- YC rarely funds brokers; the interesting part would be the sourcing agent sold to other brokers (software), not the trading.
- The domain expired: fixing it is the bare minimum.

## What to do in the next 8 weeks
- Document orders, GMV and margin with ALE.
- Close 5 customers in Toluca.
- Renew the domain.